


The Q of Christmas

by katesfire



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:54:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5491241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katesfire/pseuds/katesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Scorpion, Q takes Janeway on a journey through past, present and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, I would like to thank my beta: Cheile, my writing sister, one of my best friends. Also, she deserves the credit for pointing me in the direction of the suggestion from [galinaredreznikov](http://galinaredreznikov.tumblr.com). Her original posting stated: "I just thought of a fic where Q assumes the roles of the three Christmas Spirits in A Christmas Carol." 
> 
> Since Q is one of my favorite characters to write, I took it and ran with it. I also must thank Cheile for writing for Reanla Edaine, a character of her conception.
> 
> This story pretty much wrote itself. I was merely the conduit. That being said, I do have to make mention that this fic does tie into a series that Cheile and I have begun and been picking at which we have decided to dub the Reveille Series which later leads into the yet unreleased Star Falls Series. Even if you haven't read anything from the Reveille Series it won't matter. You will still be able to follow this story as though it were a stand-alone. (A link to Reveille will be added later as the first story is currently being rewritten). 
> 
> Also: the typical disclaimer applies - I don't own the characters, the franchise, etc. I just let them out of their chastity belts to play every now and then. Please enjoy.

She went to Neelix’s party if for no other reason to appease him and to keep the gossip down. She had gone and sampled his festive culinary creations and drank a glass of champagne. She didn’t feel festive. She didn’t feel celebratory. The recent events of the mission she had dubbed “Scorpion” stuck freshly in her mind. His betrayal stung deeply. And what was worse was he had been right. He had been acting Captain. He had made a command decision that he had felt was prudent at the time and under the circumstances. He had followed regulations and had adhered to protocol to the letter. It didn’t matter that his decision was in direct contrast to what she had told him she had wanted. She had merely been expressing her wishes at that point because she had been left unfit to command. What had happened was exactly what she had always feared would happen. Her personal regard for him as a friend had affected their working relationship. Because he was her friend, she had assumed he would naturally do what she wanted. She had assumed that because he had always followed her as her second in command he would carry on doing as she wished even once he had the reigns. He didn’t. And she was pissed, mostly at herself, for allowing her judgment to be compromised by emotion.

What if it had been Tuvok she had left in charge with her wishes conveyed as to how she expected the mission to go and he had done the exact opposite in making a command decision? Would she have felt the same way she did now or would she have accepted that he was using his best judgment as a seasoned officer under the circumstances at the time? She didn’t like her answer. She hated to admit to herself that she would have more easily accepted Tuvok making a choice in stark contrast to her expressed wishes than Chakotay. She was annoyed that, even though she knew Chakotay was just as capable an officer as she or Tuvok or any of her other senior staff, she had mentally held him to a higher standard because he was her best friend. Somewhere, logic had derailed itself in her brain and she had convinced herself that because of their friendship he should have automatically just done what she had wanted.

Was she really that deluded? That she had just expected him to do whatever she wanted merely because she thought it was best and for him not to offer up an argument against a course he felt was wrong? Had she really expected him to just be her yes-man?

Yes. She was pissed at herself for putting their friendship in the middle of a situation that caused their ship and crew to be jeopardized. She had not been fair to him because she refused to see his side. She refused to see any side that would have caused their journey home to be delayed.

She was not only pissed but she was embarrassed. She had always prided herself on being diplomatic but she had also failed on that point, too. She had chastised him like a little child who had stepped out of line. She had all but cut his balls off and handed them to him. She had forgotten how to work with him as a team because she was so hell bent on proving that she could do anything she had made up her mind to do, including creating an alliance between them and the Borg. And to make matters even worse, the bridge crew knew she had given him a tongue lashing if not worse. They had returned to the bridge with him looking furious on the outward face but he didn’t fool them. They knew something had changed in that moment and the tenor of the crew had yet to return to anywhere near the same as it had been.

So, she had swallowed her pride, stowed her embarrassment, quelled her self-loathing, and had gone to the party. It was the first time in years that he had not escorted her to a party. That had drawn a few looks: the fact that she deliberately passed him by at the bar, pretending not to see him. He wasn’t a drinker. Maybe a toast with the crew or a drink with dinner but usually it was wine or champagne or cider. She had positioned herself so someone was always in her line of vision but she was well aware of where he was seated though she pretended otherwise.

Tom Paris was likely responsible for the mistletoe. He had swooped in and planted a kiss on her cheek. Tom, on the other hand, _was_ noted for partaking in a questionable beverage or two and she could smell the liquor on his breath when his lips touched her cheek. She had cued herself to laugh at him, then warned Harry Kim off from copying his best pal with a mere look. She had read his intentions in his eyes that he had meant to go for the other cheek, likely emboldened by this partaking of Paris’ _special_ punch. His cheeks flushed a bit when she read his intentions on his face and he quickly turned and struck up awkward conversation with Crewman Henley.

Tuvok drifted around the room and she suspected that he was there for two reasons. The first was presumably to be seen so she didn’t order him to be seen. The second was to ensure that order was being kept and to make a certain punch bowl disappear if things appeared to start heading south. He caught her eyes with a nod and she almost snickered. If a Vulcan could have lowered himself to sarcasm, she could have sworn that look said “see, I am here without being ordered to, so there.” He could sometimes seem as indignant as a human child being forced to dress in a starched and uncomfortable suit just to attend Sunday dinner. She had nodded back with a wry sort of smile as if to let him know that she knew what he was up to. He didn’t respond other than to raise an eyebrow at her. She turned and continued her circle around the room, anxious to duck out as quickly as she could get back to the door.

Neelix could always be counted upon to draw attention to her presence and try to rope her into some sort of morale boosting scheme. He had come around the counter from the kitchen carrying a huge tray of questionable looking “treats” for the event. Traditional treats for this festive occasion, or so he had claimed. She was certain her stomach would have reacted festively, too, if she opted to indulge. She was grateful to see an ensign from Stellar Cartography following behind him with a tray of replicated fare and she took the opportunity to snag what appeared to be a version of a caramel brownie and was quickly disappointed to find it was butterscotch instead. She slipped away from the entrance to the galley, lest Neelix return and discover her lingering. It was surprising to find him so chipper, considering the poignant absence of one of their...family.

Kes had left them and it may have been a selfish thought but she felt that perhaps she was feeling her absence even deeper than the rest of them. She had gathered that Kes and Neelix had broken off their dating arrangement, despite Neelix’s obvious continued affection for her. She, on the other hand, truly had not realized how much she had come to depend on the young woman and how much she had come to think of her as a daughter. A daughter wise beyond her years. She filled the emotional counsel gaps where Tuvok could not. She needed Kes. And though Kes had given them the gift of ten less years, she would have gladly traded 50 years just to see her elfin face again, her curious blue eyes, ~~to~~ hear her lyrical voice offering guidance in her simplistic manner that always seemed to be right on the mark. She hated the pain that burned in her heart.

She gazed around the room one last time, glimpsed Tom trying to edge closer to B’Elanna Torres and couldn’t help the sarcastic “fat chance, Tom” thought that crossed her mind. Of all of the women on the ship, excluding herself of course, he would pick the one who looked at him like he was a toad and would rather clean the hull of the ship with an old fashioned toothbrush than go on a date with him. Surprisingly, B’Elanna edged over and seemed to welcome Tom into joining the group in the corner of the room. She shook her head and decided B’Elanna was just being unusually nice. Perhaps it was the punch.

The door swished open and Kathryn turned to quickly slip through it so she could disappear back to her quartets when a little hand grabbed hers. “Captain? I have a Christmas present for you.” She turned and found herself looking down into the huge blue eyes of Naomi Wildman. “I told mom we had to stay until you arrived.” She offered the silver wrapped present up to her.

“Thank you, Naomi, but I don’t deserve any presents this year. You could get your mom something very nice if you recycle it and use the credits. She deserves it more than I do.” Carefully detaching her hand from the child’s, she quickly turned on her heel and took off out the door. She felt her lungs crushing in on themselves; the burn in her chest was threatening to explode into flame. She had to get out of there.

Chakotay had been watching her. He knew what her intentions were. He knew she would only stay for less than fifteen minutes; she surprised him when she slipped out in less than 10. What he hadn’t expected was her treatment of Naomi. Refusing the child’s present because she was dealing with demons the little girl was too young to understand was not an excuse. He had been taught to always accept a gift from a child, no matter what. Apparently Kathryn had missed that lesson or just didn’t care and that left Naomi standing there in the doorway with tears pouring down her face, holding a present she had obviously put a lot of thought into and had wrapped herself. Her little heart was obviously breaking. It was no secret how much she admired Kathryn and, if Kathryn didn’t see that, she was blind.

He slid from the stool at the bar, stepping carefully as he had indulged enough to be a little tipsy at this point. However, he was not as completely intoxicated as he intended to become before the end of the night. He knelt down next to Naomi.

“I saved all of my credits for a whole month…” she whimpered.

He drew her into his arms. He didn’t bother to ask what she had saved so hard for. He didn’t trust what he might say about Kathryn’s behavior if he knew. “Naomi, the Captain has had a really rough few weeks.”

“She said she didn’t deserve any presents. But she is wrong. She does. She is the reason we are all here. She is the reason why we stay together. How can she not know that?”

He felt like someone had punched him in the gut. As mad as he was at Kathryn, Naomi was right. If she had not destroyed the Array, if she had not beat Species 8472 and the Borg...he could go on and on. She was the glue that kept them all together and kept them heading for home. And even Naomi could see that. But she had overstepped her boundaries. It was unfair of her to expect him to do whatever she wanted him to when every fiber in his being told him that she was making the wrong decision. It had been his duty to support her because she was the Captain, but she had never given him the chance, never given the senior staff a chance to discuss her decision. She unilaterally made a decision that put all of them at risk that he felt was reckless and wrong, never gave them a chance to offer alternatives, and had just expected them to blindly follow her. This time, she had gone too far. Way too far. And the instant he had taken command, he had done what he thought was right. He didn’t do it to spite her. And she had chastised him, unleashed her fury upon him in a way she never had before. And he couldn’t help but believe that had it been Tuvok calling the shots, even if he had done the exact same thing he had done, she wouldn’t have reacted nearly as bad. He would never know and he didn’t dare ask her. And if her mood hadn’t been bad enough, then Kes had had to leave them and it sent her spiraling into a darkness he had never seen from her before. As if she was the only one who had loved Kes and missed her.

“She is just hurt right now, Naomi. I am sure she will come around. How about we have some hot chocolate and see what sweets Neelix has made?”

The mention of hot chocolate, Neelix and sweets seemed to divert her young mind a little. “I did ask him to make peppermint bark. I wonder how that turned out.”

He smiled, despite the foul mood he felt brewing inside. He would see that Naomi smiled, turn her over to her mother or Neelix, and then head straight back to the bar. If he didn’t drink himself into a stupor, he might regret the actions he was likely to take, which would be to show up at her door and give her the verbal tongue lashing she deserved. And he couldn’t be sure he would stop at verbal. Maybe turning her over his knee would change her attitude immensely. If the darkness hadn’t grown so thick inside, the very thought of her fair Irish bottom scarlet red under his hand might have aroused different feelings inside of him. But not tonight. Not tonight.

 

The mouth of the bottle cranked hard against the glass. Shit. She broke it. She was sure she'd broken it. She didn’t care. She would still drink it. Glass and all. One simply did not pour out Jameson—especially Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve. Though she should have just been drinking the cheap stuff. It wasn’t as though she was enjoying this. She was on a mission. She wanted to be drunk. She wanted to be numb. She wanted to nullify the demons. She threw back the shot she had poured, forgetting that the glass might have been broken. It wasn’t. It couldn’t have felt any worse to swallow glass than she still felt inside.

Clink. The mouth of the half empty bottle bounced off of the glass again. She kept pouring until the glass was half full. She would sip this one. She really would. She would draw from the glass, let the whiskey burn away everything inside until she could feel nothing but the fire.

“Well it could start burning away this feeling any time now,” she slurred aloud in reply to her musings.

“You are just going to feel ten times worse in the morning, Kathy.”

Kathryn let her head loll to the side until she caught sight of the possessor of the voice that had spoken in her ear. There, standing next to her, was Q dressed in a Christmas elf costume full with bells on the ends of the swirly toes of his shoes, all red and green with pointed ears and rosy cheeks. And what was worse was there were occasionally two of him.

“Oh, hell, I’m hallucinating. I thought only Absinthe caused hallucinations. No. I’m drunk. This is a drunken delusion. Leave it to my mind to conjure up Q as drunken company. I AM drinking Jameson, shouldn’t you be a leprechaun?”

“Afraid not, Kathy. Besides, it is Christmas, not Saint Patrick’s Day.” He swiped the bottle from the table as she picked up the glass and took a sip. He took a whiff. “Uhg! Whyever would you rot your gut with this trash when there are _so_ many other less offensive things in the universe to indulge in?”

She waved her hand in the air in an exaggerated motion. “Well not all of us can just snap ourselves around the galaxy and sample all of those unique delicacies, now can we?” She sipped from the glass. “I can’t believe I am sitting here talking to a drunken delusion. Go away, Q. Both of you.”

“Both?”

“Yes. It isn’t funny to twin yourself. As if one of you isn’t pest enough in this universe.”

Q snickered. “Ah, but if there were two of me,” he mused.

“I am creating a monster. This delusion is getting out of hand. Now either I need to take myself to bed or I need to drink more.” She made a grab for the bottle in his hand but missed, forgetting she had half of a glass sitting on the table in front of her. “And if my own delusion is able to outwit me, then bed it is.”

“If you have forgotten, I tried to take you to bed, Kathy…”

“Oh no. We are not going down that road again. My intoxicated brain may say things I otherwise wouldn’t. Go away, Q.” She caught sight of the glass on the table and attempted to reach for it, but he was faster.

“I think you have had quite enough of that.”

“Now my delusion is tempering my whiskey intake. This is fantastic.”

“I am not a delusion.” He snapped the half empty bottle and glass out of existence and was there in time to catch her when she attempted to stand up and the whiskey went straight to her head.

“Okay, I believe you. You feel too solid to be a delusion,” she acquiesced, feeling the strange tingly warmth where his body touched hers. She had felt that sensation before when he had held her in his arms with intentions of convincing her to procreate with him. It had to be a biological effect of his physiological make up. “What do you want?” He didn’t step away from her nor did he relinquish his hold on her which was probably a good thing. She wasn’t altogether convinced she could actually stand on her own.

“Have you ever read Dickens?”

“What?” What in the hell was he talking about? She was still stuck on the fact that he was holding her awkwardly in his arms and she had yet to protest his breech of her personal space.

“The way you treated poor Naomi Wildman was really Scrooge-like, don’t you think?”

She stared at him wide-eyed and drop-jawed. Was he seriously giving her a lesson in Christmas spirit? Or attempting to? She could admit that she had probably been unfair to the little girl, but she had been honest. She didn’t deserve anything for Christmas and wasn’t about to lie and pretend she did. Her feelings of anger at herself seemed to bubble up through the numbing effect of the whiskey. “She will get over it. I wasn’t going to lie to her and pretend to be the figure of greatness that she seems to believe me to be when I feel like anything but.” This time she pulled herself away from his hold and stumbled backwards and, luckily, landed on her derriere on the couch. She gave him a drunken version of the infamous death glare as if to inform him that he did not see her stumble and fall.

“Kathy, I think you need a lesson. A lesson in the spirit of Christmas.”

“Oh no, you don’t. I don’t need anything of the sort. This hangover is going to be lesson enough, and of course, listening to the Doctor lecture on the damage to my body he has to undo tomorrow.” Her head was starting to spin as she pulled herself to her feet once more. She really needed to either continue drinking or go to bed before the ship started to feel like a bucking bronco.

Q closed the gap between them at a speed impossible for humans to obtain, the ridiculous elf uniform disappearing to be replaced by his customary Starfleet uniform. He wrapped his arms around her again. “Consider this my Christmas gift to you.” Before she could protest, he snapped his fingers and they disappeared from _Voyager_ in a flash of light.


	2. Chapter 2

When her vision returned, she looked around and her breath caught in her throat. The Academy Institute. _Earth. They were on Earth._ “What are we doing here?” She turned and rolled her eyes when she found him dressed as a ludicrous version of Father Time. He had a long beard, a staff with a crystal ball version of the Earth on the top and heavy linen robes with a ridiculous clock hanging around his neck.

“Welcome to the Christmas past, Kathy. Perhaps I am feeling rather generous. Or maybe I just can’t stand to see you wallowing in your own self-loathing and pity after all you have done for me and the Continuum. I am going to teach you a lesson about love and show you exactly where your blink of an eye life is headed if you don’t make some serious changes.” Despite his arrogant front, what he said was true. It was driving him absolutely crazy to see her so dreadfully unhappy. He liked her. Sure, she was human. Sure, her existence in the universe was truly but a blink of an eye in time compared to his own. But for whatever reason, he liked her and perhaps even admired her a little in her ability to beat the odds despite those that were stacked against her. He knew better than anyone exactly how great the odds were that were stacked against her and what was up the road ahead for her. In such a dreadfully short existence in the grand scheme of the universe, he did not want to see her spend it unhappy.

“Oh no, no, no. We are not doing this. Take me back to Voyager,” she demanded.

“Do you think your friendship is enough to make me just do as you please merely because it is your will?”

She flinched. That was a low blow. So he knew all about that, too. Of course he did. He was omnipotent and capable of infinite manipulation of space and time. She wondered momentarily if their journey was like a syndicated holoprogram for him. Tune in every day to see what was up with his favorite humanoids? She nearly laughed at herself at the thought. Surely being omnipotent gave him better things to do than follow her everyday movements. “What friendship?” she retorted sharply, perhaps a little too sharp.

He merely grimaced in annoyance. “Here I am with probably the least gracious human in existence. It is not every day a ‘God’ befriends a mortal and all you can do is hurl rejections. Kathy, I am wounded to the core. I can only imagine how poor Naomi felt tonight.”

She winced this time and sighed. Maybe it was because she was still intoxicated. Maybe she really was being a hard ass and unreasonable. “Ok, Q. I give up. What do I have to do to get this over with?”

“There now, that’s a bit better. I am going to teach you what it is to be loved.”

Her eyes flew open at the torrent river of thoughts that crashed through her brain at what he meant by his spoken intentions. Hadn’t she been clear the last time he had tried to seduce her to impregnate her?

“Oh, Kathy, I am flattered,” he snorted in laughter, “however we have been down that road before and if I must remind you, you had your chance, remember?”

Her face flushed scarlet, though she was still perplexed by what he meant that he was going to teach her what it was to be loved. She already knew. She had loved Cheb, and Justin, and Mark, and her family, and… well, she knew.

“We are at the Academy Institute. It is your senior year…”

“The holiday dance,” she whispered looking down the familiar hallway to the cafeteria doors where the dances and parties were held.

“Precisely. In a few moments you—beautiful seventeen-year-old you, that is— is going to round that corner and the handsome devil you thought was going to be the love of your life is going to be there waiting. At that moment, you will merge with your younger self and be but an observer. She won’t know it but you will be there in her head, in her mind, seeing through her eyes and feeling everything she feels. Your consciousness will exist in its own little bubble within her. Think of it almost like a Vulcan mind meld, but far deeper and more intimate,” he explained.

“But, Q, how will I…?” She never got to finish her sentence.

_**Suddenly she was within her own body, her youthful feeling body with taut muscles from years of tennis, the perfectly toned tummy, firm breasts, same flat Irish behind, and the auburn sticks for hair she had always hated. At first, it was very surreal being inside her own body from days past, feeling everything physically, but also hearing another set of thoughts… thoughts that were her own but not. And then not having any control over her own body. The other consciousness dictated what the body did. If she could have taken a deep breath to center herself, she would have, but she couldn’t. So she merely told herself to do what Q said she was to do: observe._

_Then Cheb filled her vision. Handsome, cocky Cheb. She had been crazy for him. The older her mused on her younger, naïve self. The Academy would have done him good, would have whipped some of that arrogance out of him… she paused and thought on Tom Paris for a moment… or intensified it. In so many ways, he had been the sure-footed, always certain guide she needed. Cheb didn’t doubt a single thing. In his mind, nothing could prevent him from accomplishing what he wanted. If there was something out there on the horizon, he always believed it was his for the taking._

_Cheb took her younger counterpart into his strong, beefy arms. She felt tiny in his arms. It reminded her of another not so distant time when she occupied the space of the circle created by another set of arms, but she couldn’t think about that now. Cheb had her seventeen-year-old self pressed against his firm mass and she was feeling the adrenaline, the desire, the flood of lust that her younger self was feeling. Then his mouth was on hers, pinning her between himself and the wall, the firm enthusiastic hardness at his groin pressing into her belly. His mouth left her lips and found the hollow of her throat that made her hair stand on end.**_

“Come on, Kathryn, it’s Christmas. Anna’s parents went to Risa for the holiday and her house is completely empty. It will just be the four of us. She said we could have the guest bedroom all to ourselves.”

“Cheb, my parents will kill me if I am not home before midnight.”

He pulled away from her in a snap and slammed his back against the wall next to her. “Jeeze, don’t they get that you are seventeen? Isn’t it about time to lengthen the leash a little bit?” he snapped, frustrated. “What are they going to do next year when we are at the Academy? All the way in San Francisco? Or will your mother transport to come make sure your nightlight is lit for you every night and tuck you in with milk and cookies?”

Kathryn shivered a little at the sudden assault of the cool air as it rushed into the space his warm body had previously occupied against her. “Please, Cheb… it’s just that…” she trailed off, hesitant.

_**She hadn’t wanted to tell him that she was afraid of him being her first. What if it didn’t work out between them? What if he wasn’t really that special? What if he didn’t still want her afterwards? Would she be angry at herself? Those were all of the questions she echoed in her own thoughts that were swirling in the mind of her younger self. She had to admit a little part of her missed the teenage frustrations surrounding sex. The adult complications were, by far, much more intense with far worse ramifications.**_

Cheb turned back to her, his fingers wrapping around her waist, sliding against the shimmering emerald green fabric of her dress. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I know. I love you, too.”

“We have been together for a long time now, Kathryn.”

“I know.”

_**Part of her wanted to tell her younger self not to fall for it. He was leading her down the path to get into her panties. He was a teenage male full of hormones who would likely say anything to get her to climb into bed with him. But seeing him through her adult eyes, looking into his eyes through her own youthful eyes, he really had loved her. He had, or at least he thought he had, loved every single thing about her. Her younger self who believed she was in love with him had felt so warm and safe having his love, having a man in her life who wasn’t jetting off to deal with the Cardassian problem but desired her company and time and affection and wanted to be immersed in her and everything about her. It wasn’t that Cheb was a replacement for her father. It wasn’t some strange father complex but rather a young woman growing into her own and finding out what she wanted and at that moment in her life Cheb was everything her father wasn’t. Cheb was arrogant, egotistical, and absolutely crazy about her. He was bold, brash, and impulsive. And part of her wanted to be all of those things with him. Her parents had raised her to be logical and composed and gracious and polite and to behave properly and appropriately. For once in her life, she wanted to throw caution to the wind. And she had—for love. She knew in a few moments, her younger self would give in, would go to Anna’s house and Cheb would make love to her for the first time. She also knew that, once he fell asleep, she would slip out of his arms and later slip through her own front door at the stroke of midnight. And the next day, while Cheb would be sore at her for leaving after agreeing to recklessly disregard her parents, he would have fallen even more in love with her and so would go their whirlwind relationship and her battle with her parents for more freedom to be able to indulge in their torrid love affair._

“Okay, Q. I get it. Cheb loved me. I know how this one plays out. What’s next?”

Her vision returned and she was back in her own body, all of the familiar achy spots that had manifested with age were right where she expected them to be. She gazed around and found herself in her quarters, but these were not her quarters on _Voyager._ She was in her quarters on the _Al-Batani_ and she could see the outline of her younger self concealed in the bed.

“Do you know where we are?” Q asked, still dressed in his ridiculous Father Time costume.

“Yes, this was my first posting. We are on the _Al-Batani.”_ She felt a cold chill creep up her spine. “The question is _when_ are we?”

“Why, Kathy, I am surprised at you. You really don’t know?”

She surveyed her surroundings. They were a disaster. Dishes that had not been recycled littered several surfaces; various clothing items were flung haphazardly around the room. Then she knew. This was after the Arias expedition. This was after…after being held captive by Cardassians. Justin. Her gut clenched. Her heart constricted. _Justin._ She couldn’t do this. There were parts of her that had never gotten over Justin’s death. During bouts of nostalgia when she suffered from insomnia she would muse on the what ifs. She would try to envision what her life would have been like had Justin and her father not been killed in the accident. She would have had the perfect dress and would have had a small ceremony in Indiana. Her father would have given her away, her mother would have cried and, by now, she would have had half a dozen half grown children. She never would have been offered _Voyager_ because she would have taken a science posting on a passenger ship where she and Justin could be together, could have their family, and lived happily ever after. Or, even more extreme, she may have been living on Earth down the road from her aging parents in Indiana, raising her children and having given up on Starfleet altogether. Some days, she could envision herself being perfectly content with that life.

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t see him again, Q.”

“Tut-tut, Kathy, your agreement is irrevocable. You are in this for the full ride now.”

“Q!” The last thing she saw was him snap his fingers.


	3. Chapter 3

_**When the disorientation passed, she was inside her own head, albeit the younger version of herself. Would she ever get used to being a bubble within her younger self? She hoped not. She hoped this charade was nearing its end. Each time, the experience she was forced to relive was more emotionally poignant. She had long ago buried or resolved the feelings she had experienced during these days and she certainly did not want to dredge them up. There was a saying about letting sleeping dogs lie. Apparently Q hadn’t heard that one._

_She then became aware of the pain, the confusion, the horror, and the fear. She had slipped into a bit of a frightened depression following her and Admiral Paris’ capture by the Cardassians. She was reliving the experience in her own mind's eye: the Gul with the probing hands, Paris' screams of agony, the dank smell of her cold little cell. She didn’t know what had been worse--the scaly, icy fingers of the Gul as he made whispered threats in her ear about what he had in store for her if Paris didn’t tell them what he wanted to know, or perhaps maybe even if he did, or knowing that Paris knew she had heard every agonizing scream as they employed methods of torture on him she couldn’t even imagine. Her older self now knew exactly what he likely endured, but her youthful, still somewhat innocent mind could only imagine while at the same time trying not to imagine. Her youthful mind was also blaming herself for not being stronger, smarter, for not having come up with a plan to rescue them both._

_Then there was Justin. Strong, handsome Justin who was her proverbial knight in shining armor. He had come to rescue them. And then she had saved him. All should have been well. But then there was that, too. Her younger self was asking whether or not it was some kind of rescuer crush she was developing. The elder her knew that perhaps it started out that way, but it would transcend and evolve into a much richer, deeper love. She knew that now. But she was here only to observe and feel. That was what Q wanted, right?**_

Kathryn cocooned herself deeper in the blankets of her bed. She wanted to be at home. She wanted to smell caramel brownies and coffee drifting out of the kitchen. She wanted to hear the sounds of her mother preparing dinner, Phoebe cursing when she knocked into her easel when she whirled around too quickly, the faint beep of the console in her father’s office when there was a message waiting for him. She missed the ambiance of home. Home was safe.

It wasn’t really in her nature to second guess herself but she was wondering if she really was up to the task of being a Starfleet officer. She had been scared. She wasn’t supposed to be scared. She was supposed to think on her feet. But she did nothing truly proactive to effectuate their escape. She had been scared and cold and hadn’t known what to do. And then there was guilt. She knew her father worked on the Cardassian problem. A lot of his missions were classified. He had never given her the impression that he had been captured by them and now having heard Admiral Paris screaming as they tortured him, she was guilty and even embarrassed that she had been slightly happy? No. Happy wasn’t the right word. Relieved, perhaps, that it was Paris and not her father who they were torturing. She didn’t think she could stand it if she had been on a mission with her father and she’d had to listen to them torture him.

But Justin came. Justin had saved her. Had saved them. She hadn’t liked him on a personal level from the beginning. He was a loner. He flew solo. For six months following her initial flushed-cheek introduction to him _,_ she had not cared for the way he worked. She felt like he treated her like she was merely someone he had been assigned to babysit rather than a capable officer. She had obviously proven herself to Paris in order to be assigned to this crew. Why couldn’t he acknowledge that she was willing and able? It had been infuriating. She had been completely unprepared for him to be a member of the elite Rangers Paris had mentioned at the beginning of their mission when he had let them in on the double nature of their mission. She had all but tried to put it out of her head until that fateful day in the shuttle with Paris.

After it was all over and Paris had revealed that Justin had experienced Cardassian torture for three days, yet still put himself in harm's way and at risk of another round just to rescue them _,_ she had gone to him. She had thanked him. And he had revealed the level of his affection for her. Those ocean blue eyes so dark with his honesty under the veil of tousled dark hair. “I couldn’t let them hurt you,” he had said. Not “my mission was to save you” or “my job was to prevent them from gathering hurtful information from you.” No. He couldn’t let them hurt _her_. She had been thrown for a loop. This dark, intense man, this man who had all but become her constant companion yet never let her in and rarely made small talk with her _,_ had grown to feel some level of affection towards her that he couldn’t stand the idea of them hurting her. She had warmed. She had swooned. She had felt a strange cascade of emotions as everything began to make sense: the dark brooding, keeping her at arm's length so as not to become overwhelmed by emotion, so as not to completely lose all objectivity. He had been concerned about becoming close to her. The emotional detachment clicked and she learned in that moment how precarious of a situation they had really been in. It was the very nature of the beast of becoming involved with someone in Starfleet, the ever present dangers that space and hostile territories and aliens could prove to be.

But she fell. At least she found herself falling. Suddenly he wasn’t treating her like a walking tricorder who was expected to just take commands and record data for his later reference. He was talking to her. He was opening up like some rare blossoming flower that had been dormant. She was overwhelmed. And she hadn’t fully processed her own experiences on the Cardassian moon. Those things coupled with her first Christmas off-world hit her hard. And she faltered.

Now here she was. It was Christmas Eve and she was holed up in her quarters, avoiding the dinner Admiral Paris was hosting for the crew. She had politely begged off, appealing to his fatherly side by explaining that she was still working through some emotions and that she preferred to have some alone time. What she really wanted to do was drown in her bed. She had never thought herself lazy _,_ but somewhere along the line over the last several hours _,_ she had decided that she thought she might be able to live in this bed permanently. The logical side of her chastised her for such foolishness but she kept ignoring the admonishing.

The echo of her door chime dragged her out of her musings on the comfort of her bed as a living arrangement. Damn. She had forgotten to ask the computer for no disturbances and now she couldn’t without coming off rude to whomever was on the other side of the door. And she certainly couldn’t let them see her or her quarters in this state of disarray. She sighed, swung her legs over the side of the bed and straightened her uniform. Sleeping in a uniform to be ever ready should she be called to her station in the middle of the night had become a bit of a habit she had yet to break following her time at the Academy. Middle of the night drills were less embarrassing if she appeared in uniform rather than in a nightgown. She thought about doing something with her hair but decided it would take too much time, especially since the door-ringer had just chimed a second time.

When the door to her quarters swished open _,_ she awkwardly slipped out and ran right into Justin. She hoped the door swished closed behind her before he got a good look inside.

“You know, I don’t think I have ever seen you out of uniform, Kathryn.”

She flushed bright red at the mental image that danced across her mind until she realized he actually meant. She hoped her face wasn’t as red as it felt. “I… well old habits die hard.”

“Ah. I remember those night drills. Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret. You can take the time to throw on a uniform if you are called to your station.”

“I prefer to be punctual.”

“It can’t be comfortable. Being in uniform around the clock.”

She saw the merriment dancing in the dark ocean currents that weaved their way through his blue eyes and knew he was teasing her. She was hardly in the mood to laugh. She wasn’t really in the mood for keeping company. “It could be worse. Could be Klingon armor.”

“Ok, I suppose you are right. So tell me, why are you spending Christmas alone?”

“Just a little blue. It is my first one off world. I will have to just get used to that, though. What about you? Why aren’t you at the Admiral’s dinner?”

He shrugged. “Paris knows I don’t do social gatherings. He generally doesn’t say anything if I duck out.”

They stood there momentarily as an awkward silence seemed to settle between them. She nearly commented on it but decided to hold her tongue in hopes she could go crawl back into her bed. She liked him. She did. Her body tingled with a strange electricity when he was near. She was reminded of how Cheb had made her feel but while this was similar it was altogether different. Cheb had been youthful exuberance and passion. She had been infatuated with his reckless and cocky demeanor. She had told herself she was in love with him. Later, all of the things about him that were so unlike her and had drawn her to him like a moth to a flame turned out to be annoyances that eventually made her want to rip her hair out.

Justin, on the other hand, wasn’t arrogant and reckless. Justin was like she was: solid, steady, understood the demands of Starfleet and what it meant to be where they were. He was a fascination, a mystery in so many ways. She found him to be intelligent and easy to talk to once he began to let her in. They had each found the friend in the other that they had been longing for. He didn’t find her inexperience an annoyance and he discovered that he could talk to her about things he had never really been able to talk to anyone else about and she wasn’t judgmental.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to think I always live in such disarray.”

He laughed. A rare moment because he would chuckle now and then but he never usually burst out in laughter. The rare moment was quickly contained when he saw that she was serious. “Kathryn, I have told you all of the horrors of my life, but you won’t invite me into your quarters because you are afraid I might think you are untidy?”

“Yes,” she replied firmly, raising her chin as she so often did as though she were letting him know her mind was made up.

“So are we going to just stand here in the corridor and chit-chat all evening?”

She sighed. He wasn’t going to relent and she could see that he wasn’t really wanting to leave. “I have been a bit out of sorts. I have been struggling to come to grips with all that has happened in the last few weeks so...um.” She stepped back and let the doors swish open.

Justin paused in the doorway and looked around at the level of chaos she had let her quarters become. He knew. He knew instantly that she was experiencing an emotional fall out. He had been there himself.

“Kathryn, I know what you are going through.” He turned to face her, his eyes tender and concerned. He then reached out and took her hand and pulled her to him, allowing the door to her quarters to close against the gaping looks of any who might pass by.

Kathryn felt her eyes fill with tears at his touch, felt the solid warmth of him against her body as he wrapped her in his arms ~~.~~ She drew a ragged breath, trying to keep herself together.

“Let’s clean up this mess together, have a cup of coffee, and talk. What do you think?”

She nodded her head in agreement then led the way, collecting dishes to recycle while he gathered the pieces of uniforms that were thrown about to put into the cleaning cycle. She didn’t think anything of it when he disappeared for a bit. She merely focused on the task at hand, first recycling the dishes, then stacking PADDs and cleaning up her desk. He returned with a cozy looking pair of civvies in her size.

“Now that this mess is cleaned up, come with me.”

Mutely, she did. Curiosity was her ally but could also be her enemy. She had to admit she did feel better with her quarters tidy again. She could have very well done as much herself, but somehow having him help her seemed like some of her pieces that had been shaken loose were being set back right where they belonged.

Moments later, they entered his quarters and he made her wait in the living area as he disappeared into the sleeping area. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was up to until he returned for her.

“Through the bedroom and into the bathroom. There is a surprise waiting for you. Call me when you’re ready,” he said when he reappeared and sat down in his customary chair near the viewport.

She looked at him quizzical, her heart suddenly racing in her chest. “Justin, what…”

“No arguments. Trust me, okay?”

He had saved her life. Of course she trusted him. But what could he possibly want for her to visit his bathroom for? In the bedroom, she found the civvies he had replicated for her laid out on the corner of the bed. She turned back to him once more, but thought better of it and decided to do as he told her. She didn’t really have the desire to have a battle of wills she knew she was in a position to lose.

When she stepped through the door to the bathroom, she stopped in her tracks, her mouth falling open in surprise at the sight. There, in the middle of the room, was a real bathtub filled with water and bubbles and next to the tub was a steaming pot of coffee and two mugs. How was it that this man who she was still learning knew so very much about her? She warmed inside and let a small smile creep across her face. Yes. He certainly knew how to heal her soul. Quickly, she undressed, tossing her uniform into the cleaning cycle before climbing into the soothing comfort and warmth of the waters contained within the tub. Normally, she pinned her hair up if she took a bath but not this time. She submerged herself completely, holding her breath for as long as she could before allowing just her face to surface so she could take another breath and disappear under the layer of bubbles. She hadn’t had the ability to indulge in a bath since she had been home the last time. When had that been? For the moment, the date escaped her. She felt her lungs burn with the need for oxygen but held out for a couple more moments before allowing herself to break through the curtain of bubbles on the surface of the water. Wiping the suds from her face, she gasped at the sight of Justin standing above her. She was grateful for her bubble shroud at that moment as it hid her nudity.

“You didn’t call and I didn’t hear any noise. I got worried,” he stammered as he explained why he had invaded her privacy.

“It’s okay. Really. How about that cup of coffee?”

He smiled and visibly relaxed. “Do you feel better?”

She did. She truly did. It was amazing how a bath could completely rejuvenate her and she told him as much. “How do you rank? Getting a real bath tub?” This was certainly need to know information because nothing relaxed her the way being submerged in her own private little pool of warm water did. If it had to do with rank, she was going to have to make sure she kicked it into high gear so she could get promoted fast.

“Being an elite Ranger has its perks, including putting in a request for preferred quarters. I am not much of a bath guy; it was the real water shower that sold me. That was a luxury not often had when I was a kid.” He passed her a cup of coffee and poured one for himself. “Kathryn, I want you to know that you can talk to me. Not many people have experienced the Cardassians like I have.”

“I am okay now, Justin, really. I think I can put it behind me and move on. The worst of it wasn’t the Gul and his wandering hands but hearing them torture Paris. I just kept thinking of how closely my father works with the Cardassian situation and the realization hit me that it could one day be him screaming in agony. I have had some nightmares of such a thing occurring and I was struggling to reconcile how a culture can take such pleasure in torturing another species in such a way. I don’t think I will ever understand that one.”

Justin paused for a moment, taking a long, slow draw from his mug. “Would it surprise you to know I was agonizing over the same thing in regards to you? I kept reliving my own torture, but seeing them doing it to you. It ripped me apart inside to think about what they were doing to you, to even _consider_ that one of their men might be entertaining himself with you. If that had happened I might have gone back and killed every single one of them.”

Kathryn trembled, despite the warmth of the water. The raw emotional revelation he had just lain before her and the resulting cascade of emotions it produced made her head swim.

“I had no idea you felt this way.”

“I am not known for sharing my emotions. Something I have learned through the years. Emotional vulnerability has never served me well.” He reached out a hand and let his fingertips brush along her cheekbone, down her jawline and then over that spot along her neck.

_**If she could have, she would have laughed. Was it just instinct for men to go for that spot along her neck, under her ear, that just drove her crazy? Did they get issued a rule book when they hit their teenage years? How to Touch a Woman 101? Every man she had ever been intimate with had found that little spot that could nearly make her climb the walls. She watched as a third party as he leaned down and kissed her, felt the fireworks going off within her younger body concealed within the warmth of the tub waters. She knew in a few minutes that she would boldly invite him to join her. That moment of daring was a holdover from the rash and unpredictability she had tried to learn from her relationship with Cheb. And he would. He would undress in front of her, revealing his muscular physique that still held bore lingering scars from his ordeal with the Cardassians. He would later explain that their method of torture had damaged some of the skin in the area so badly that even dermal regeneration couldn’t remove it all. She would feather her fingers over those pale white marks, later followed by her lips, caressing the remnants of old wounds lovingly as if to try to remove any hurt that might have remained._

_Yes. Justin had loved her before she had even realized she loved him. He had loved her in a more mature way than Cheb ever had. She had been allowed to be herself with Justin, unlike Cheb who found her to be disagreeable when she stopped just blindly following him and started being herself. He was perfectly fine so long as she was the lovesick fool who would hang on his every word and think that everything he said was perfect and right. Justin was far different. He challenged her to be herself, to grow, to think. He wanted a partner, not a lovesick puppy and she had flourished with him. And when he had died, she had wanted to die, too. It was tragic enough losing her father, but to lose him and to suffer with survivor's guilt had been tremendous._

_She felt the caress of his body slip into the tub behind her younger self. It was like she fit perfectly into the curve of him. She felt the vibrations within the body of her younger self, felt her heart quicken; felt her breath catch in her throat. Justin. She had tried to forget exactly how perfect they were together. She wished she had some way to close out the coming moments. She didn’t know if she could experience making love with Justin again and ever be the same. When he had loved her, it was so far different than youthful, vigorous Cheb who just brought her along on his ride. Again, Justin wanted her to be a partner in all things and, if there were times when she could come first, he always made sure that she did. He always put himself second to her._

_The skillful hands sliding along the younger, taut flesh of her ribs then over her breasts to cup their swell and tickle her pebbled nipples sent her reeling. The feel of his hardness pressed against the curve of her bottom made her quiver._

**_*Q, get me out of here. Now!*_ **

**_*Oh Kathy, you always want to leave before the good parts!*_ **

_She hadn’t expected his voice to appear in her thoughts and for a moment she was paralyzed that her younger self was hearing him too. If she had, she didn’t make any showing of it because she currently had her eyes closed and her head thrown back against Justin’s firm shoulder, wet hair spread out across her chest as one of his hands slid down the plain of her lower abdomen._

**_*It’s getting crowded in here,*_ ** _she thought at him._

**_*Fine, fine.*_ ** _**_

A blink and she found herself back in her present day body, standing with Q in Justin’s quarters in the living area. The younger version of herself and young, beautiful Justin were presumably still exploring one another in the watery warmth of his bath tub.

“Are we about through with this ridiculous escapade of yours? I am beginning to think you are only interested in my sex life.”

Q looked moderately annoyed. “If you are missing the point, then perhaps we need to start over. I am limitless when it comes to energy reserves so feel free to take all night. Hell, take a decade, a century for all I care.”

“I hardly think a decade venture through my past love affairs is going to make much of a difference.” She was in a foul mood now. Seeing Justin again, _experiencing_ Justin again, was like taking a blade to an old scar and picking it open again. She hadn’t been prepared for that and it left her emotionally raw.

To distract herself, she sat down at Justin’s desk and accessed the last log he recorded, smiling wistfully as his face appeared on the screen. The smile faded as she realized that turned out to be an error ill-considered.

_“I am worried there is something wrong with Ensign Jane…Kathryn. She has been rather detached for the last couple of weeks. I have tried to ask her to join me for a meal now and then but she never seems to hear me. Or if she does she brushes me off with a casual ‘no thank you’. Yet, I have caught her lingering gazes. The mixed signals she is sending are frustrating. Maybe a more extreme approach is necessary to draw her out. After these last six or so months, I am crazy about her. I have never looked forward to routine calibrations of equipment or diagnostics before, but if she is working with me, near me, I hardly notice the work. It almost seems like a joy. I feel like I am totally losing it, but when I found out the Cardassians had her, they couldn’t mobilize me fast enough. And when I hit the ground running, well... I have to admit that though our orders were to secure the Admiral at all costs, I convinced the team that her extraction would not jeopardize our mission and would provide us a tactical advantage as we would have an undetected entrance into the compound through her cell if we breached it first since they likely didn’t see her as enough of a threat to station a guard nearby. That wasn’t entirely true. I just knew that, if we went for the Admiral first, it was entirely likely they would quickly kill her or strong arm us into being forced to leave her. I couldn’t let that happen. So far, Paris either has not reviewed the mission logs or does not care that I broke from procedure to rescue Kathryn first. I am hoping for the latter since he seems to regard her as a daughter-figure. Either way, whatever repercussions result, it will have been worth it. For now, I am going to put it out of my mind. It is Christmas and I am going to find her, see if she is okay, and hopefully break down this barrier that seems to exist between us. Or I will end up right back here nursing a wounded heart. I suppose only time will tell. Computer, end personal log.”_

“I never knew…” she trailed off. He really had loved her long before she was aware.

“Shall we continue?”

She nodded mutely. As if she had a choice. She could only assume where they were going next. It had to be…


	4. Chapter 4

Mark.

Good, ole reliable Hobbes Johnson. Steadfast and true. Only, this time she wasn’t in her own head. She was standing with Q as she watched Mark from behind. When she looked around she realized they were in a cemetery. She was about to turn to Q to question because she didn’t remember ever visiting a cemetery with Mark.

“This is the Voyager memorial. They have just erected it after declaring the ship destroyed and all hands lost,” Q told her.

She approached the beautiful marble memorial, her name etched in stone at the top, followed by a list of her entire original crew. She almost said something about the list being wrong until she remembered that Starfleet wouldn’t have known about the Maquis who had joined them. They wouldn’t have known that Chakotay had become her first officer, B’Elanna her chief engineer. Tom Paris was listed at the bottom without rank or significance other than passenger. Tuvok wasn’t listed at all. Of course. They had presumably never retrieved him from the Maquis cell.

She turned to look at Mark. Worry had aged him. He had more grey, there were unfamiliar lines etched into his face and bags under his eyes. He reached out with a trembling finger and traced her name in the stone as the tears slipped down his cheeks.

“I can’t believe you’re gone. I still just can’t accept it, Kath. No debris, no distress hail, it is just like you and your ship vanished into thin air.” His fingers followed the lines of her first and last name, skipping over her title altogether. She had never been his Captain, she had been his Kath. “And what’s worse is I don’t _feel_ like you are dead. How are you supposed to feel when someone you have loved ever since you were a boy is dead? I keep telling myself I should feel something else. But it just isn’t there. Maybe because there was no debris, no wreckage, no body to make it real. Maybe it is because I didn’t get to see you in your dress uniform, eyes closed as though sleeping peacefully, laid out upon billowy satin for one last goodbye. Even after all of these months, I still feel like you are coming back to me. I have even petitioned the Federation council to re-open the investigation into your death. Perhaps the ship wasn’t destroyed at all but rather captured by the Maquis and you are all prisoners of that renegade, Chakotay.”

Kathryn couldn’t help but stifle a snicker at the thought of having become Chakotay’s prisoner. If he had dared looked at her the way he looked at her now, Seska would have shot her dead inside of a week or two.

“Starfleet insists that their intelligence and their contacts have not revealed anything of the sort. They feel if the Maquis had captured Voyager and her crew that such a take would be too big to hide for this long. Perhaps they are right. Some 'secrets' usually do get out rather quickly when they are big ones, especially when there is a network of spies that have infiltrated an organization. Still, dammit, I can’t let go of this nagging feeling that you really aren’t dead. Dammit, Kath, of all of the strong spirits, I would have expected yours to haunt me or something. I have even started to hope for some kind of supernatural proof that you are dead just so I can know for sure.”

Kathryn reached out as Mark dropped to his knees but her hands went right through him. Powerless to comfort, powerless to wrap herself around him to let him know she was right there next to him and not really dead at all. Her heart constricted. Was it like this for all of the families? Is this what her decision had done to those left at home? She was glad that the rest of her crew couldn’t see their loved ones breaking down like this. She would have had a mutiny on her hands in a matter of seconds.

“I am never going to be able to shake you, Kath. You don’t realize how many years I have been crazy for you. All those tennis matches when I was just an awkward boy, knowing someone as great as you would never look my way. I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. And then that fateful day in the park when Petunia stole my sandwich was one of the best days of my life. After all this time, I still believe that day was our turning point. I had finally grown into the man you deserved, who could love you properly, though if I were to be truthful, I still never knew how I won your heart.”

She was swallowing the lump in her throat; tears were now sliding down her cheeks. She didn’t even care that Q was standing there watching. She was sure he had watched her in far worse moments anyway. Her heart was falling to pieces over Mark. Starfleet had always been first between them and he had never questioned her love of her career. He had never once demanded that he be put before her job. And she had loved him for understanding. But why couldn’t she be like other women who had careers in Starfleet? They took positions that were Earth based or at least Milky Way based, or they chose positions on Galaxy class ships that permitted passengers. But she never would have demanded Mark give up his position in the Questor Group for her career. That would have been incredibly selfish.

Their separate lives was probably what had been the key to their relationship. They appreciated their time with each other because of how much time they spent going in different directions. And, what’s more, Mark was safe. He wasn’t in Starfleet and he spent a great deal of his time safely on Earth. She didn’t have to worry about him being a casualty of the job. In turn, she forgot to remember how it would affect him if she had ever become a casualty of the job. And she damn well should have. She knew how painful it had been to lose her father and Justin. Unfortunately she had missed how badly her mother and sister had suffered, too, because she had been wallowing in her grief, not just grieving. If it hadn’t been for Phoebe, she never would have been in the park with Petunia that day. She wouldn’t have found herself apologizing to Mark for her unruly pup stealing his sandwich and then agreeing to play tennis with him before her two-year-long deep space mission. Maybe things would have been better for him had she never been in the park that day.

Mark was openly sobbing now. His hand pressed against the cold stone. She knelt next to him, laid her hand upon his, knowing it was futile. He couldn’t feel her, see her, hear her. Q wouldn’t allow that. “Oh, Kath, I love you. I love you so damn much. I won’t give up. I can’t. Not just yet. I am determined to find you even if I have to take a damn shuttle and look myself. They won’t be allowed to give up on you. I don’t care if it has been eighteen months. I can’t accept this. Not from you. You of all people couldn’t have been snuffed out without a trace. I refuse to believe that.”

Even through his anger at Starfleet, the tears didn’t stop. He reached up and scrubbed them away. “I hate seeing your name carved in marble, Kath. It has too much of a finality to it and I just cannot accept this is where your story ends. I feel like my heart is breaking to pieces, Kath. He traced her name once more. “Come back to me, my Kath, please.”

She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know if in this particular state of existence she even needed to breathe. She felt like she had been punched by a Klingon warrior solidly in the stomach. She wasn’t sure if it was her own guilt or if Q was controlling her emotions but it was as though she felt everything he was feeling and now she truly knew what it felt like to be gutted. At least with her father and Justin, she had known of the finality; even if she hadn’t wanted to accept it, she had known. There was closure. But for Mark, all that existed was the unknown. Emptiness. She ached in a way she had never known before and it literally sucked the very life right out of her.

“Q, I’m ready to go now,” she whispered. The words could hardly form in her throat and when they issued past her lips they were hardly audible. “ _Please_ , Q,” she pleaded.

 

With a snap of his fingers and not a word, they had left grieving Mark and they were standing in a forest. The air was warm but not too warm, slightly humid but not unbearable. Overhead, the moon shimmered and danced through the trees while stars played peek-a-boo amongst the leaves. She hadn’t turned and looked at Q, still reeling from the experiences she had just witnessed, had just felt.

“Are...did all of the families suffer like that?”

“More or less.”

“My mother and sister?”

“Still carrying the torch, though they have all seemed to have found acceptance, despite the remnants of disbelief that remain.”

She had never known Q to be so serious. Always the joker, the prankster. He seemed to delight in playing with their lives as though they were mere toys. But to hear his tone of voice, she would have believed he had been affected by the scene they had just witnessed with Mark. She wasn’t sure that was something she would ever get over.

“Are you beginning to understand?”

“I have always known that people loved me. Maybe I just took their love in step. Maybe I just took it all for granted. I guess I never knew the depths of emotion people have had for me.” Then she turned to face him and her mouth fell open before she rolled her eyes. She wanted to laugh but it wasn’t hardly the time. “What is it with you and the ludicrous costumes, Q?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just have a flair for the dramatic.”

“Are you sure it isn’t a knack for the ridiculous?” He was dressed in a present box with silver paper, gold polka dots, green ribbons and a great big red bow on his head. “Let me guess, the ghost of Christmas present?” She had to admit the banter was a convenient distraction from her dark mood.

“At your service, madam Captain. Shall we continue?” He offered her his arm.

“I can’t even begin to believe that this could get any worse.” She looped her arm through his paying little attention to their surroundings and therefore completely missing the remains of a broken insect trap dangling from the branch of a nearby tree.


	5. Chapter 5

They walked for a while in silence until the forest opened up into a clearing and her breath caught in her throat at the sight. The shuttle, the bath tub, their home. The closest trees showed evidence of wind damage; off to the side near the shuttle lay a tangled pile of limbs and other debris.

“No, Q. No way. This game of yours ends _now_. I am _not_ reliving this.”

Q snickered. “Kathy, you always seem to forget that you are not in control. I mean, there was a time when I offered you the gift of being a Q. You could have avoided all of this if you had simply given in…”

“And been your… what? Concubine? Wife? Mother of your child and diversion for the time being? No. I prefer commitment. I could never be involved with someone who casually flits around the universe and is tickled by whatever woman of whatever species catches his eye.”

“Yet you expect the men you are involved with to be okay with _you_ flitting around the galaxy?”

He knew exactly what to say to turn her words, her thoughts, her actions back on her. Was she really the selfish one in her relationships? She didn’t want to think so.

“If you aren’t selfish, then would you like to explain to me the happenings that follow this night?”

Had she spoken aloud? Had she mentioned her musings about her selfishness? Or had he been reading her mind? If he was omnipotent, then surely he had that ability too. It was fairly disquieting to know he could drop in on her mind whenever he felt like it, but that was the nature of the game when dealing with an opponent with an unfair advantage.

“Chakotay understands.”

“Does he? Are you completely sure about that?”

She sighed. Why did he have to toy with her like this? She was certain he derived some perverse pleasure from it. “You aren’t going to let me go back to my bottle of Jameson, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

She sighed in aggravation. She was merely buzzed at this point and she really would have preferred to have been drunk going into this next memory. She wanted to hate him but she knew that wouldn’t do her any good. He didn’t seem to care about how humans regarded him emotionally.

“Well, what are you waiting for, dammit!” She flung her arms wide. “Let’s get this hell over with.”

“You may not believe me now, but you might just thank me when this is all over with, Kathy.”

Before she could bite out her angry reply, her words were cut off with the snap of his fingers.

_**He was telling the angry warrior legend. Oh she wanted to throttle Q. She wished she could close her eyes but her other self was watching him with rapt attention, hanging on every word, knowing that he was speaking from his heart and baring his soul to her within the context of a legend. She had known it wasn’t likely a legend; however she recognized he was intimidated by her in some ways; he was afraid of her rejection. He was showing her the way to his heart and he was worried she would slam the door on him. She hated Q for making her relive this. She had made her peace with the fact that her first priority had to be Voyager. Chakotay had, too. At least, she believed he had. There was no point to this. But she couldn’t block out the words he said, couldn’t prevent feeling the swell of love within her other self, emotions so powerful that she knew they could be her undoing. But Voyager had moved on without them. And they were the only two people on this planet. Her research ability had been forever lost. There was no real reason they couldn’t any more. It didn’t matter. Whatever her reason for letting her guard down was had disappeared when Voyager had returned for them. She was determined to find some way to block out what was about to happen....**_

“Is that really an ancient legend?” He smiled. Oh, that dimpled smile that made her melt. She felt her heart quicken in her chest.

“No. But that made it easier to say.”

Tears in her eyes, she raised her hand and he laced his fingers in between hers as a single tear escaped down her cheek. She felt like the emotions within her were going to boil over and seep out onto the table between them. She stood from the table and he followed her lead. She made the short trip around the table until she found herself gazing up into his dark, fathomless eyes that seemed to burn with emotion. What she saw there served to embolden her. Her hands found his chest, slowly sliding up along his collar bone, pulling him towards her.

“I have been in turmoil for so long, Kathryn. It wasn’t until the last several months that I have been able to put a name to what I feel for you because I have never known this feeling before. Only pitiful facsimiles of it. Kathryn Janeway, I love you.”

She pulled him down to her, feeling his mouth settle against her own, igniting a fire within her belly. At first it was just his lips which she had known would be soft, then she opened her mouth to him and felt his tongue slide against her own. The tingles began in her toes and danced their way to her scalp. She felt vibrant and alive in a way she never had before. Yes, she loved this man. It started the very moment his darkly handsome face filled her view screen shortly upon their arrival in this cursed Quadrant. She had denied it. She had flirted with him. She had refused to admit it. She was certain she didn’t have time for a love affair while she had the weight of their joint crews on her shoulders with a mission so monumental that it could take up their entire lives. Their crew had slowly started to think of _Voyager_ as their home, had slowly started adapting and making changes, pairing off, but she had refused to allow herself that luxury. It was as though by allowing herself that she was starting down the slippery slope of sacrificing the mission to actually return to their real home. But now _Voyager_ wasn’t her responsibility. Resistance was, as the Borg liked to say, futile.

When he gathered her in his arms and carried her to his bunk, she let go of _Voyager_ , her crew, her mission. This was her home now. She would give herself over to the woman who was starved for affection, who ached to be loved by him. She was no longer Captain of anything and, for the first time in her life, she wanted to just be his Kathryn.

_**She was screaming. She had fought so hard to shut out this memory, had been forced to remind herself on Voyager that he was off limits. If Q made her relive these intimate moments, how was she expected to be the same? She would have to fight this all over again. With Justin and Mark, she had felt like she had been forced to poke at an old scar. Here, she was literally being forced to slice open the scab that had yet to heal._

_And then Chakotay was undressing her other self. She felt his heavy but gentle hands masterfully unbuttoned the tunic down her back, little fires ignited where his fingers happened to come into contact with her skin. He pulled the tunic over her head, careful to not tangle the buttons around her hair as she always did herself. She wanted to close her eyes, plug her ears, but she was merely an observer and her_ other _self was too intoxicated by him, too fixated in her fascination with him, with the moment that was finally unraveling before her._ _She watched as he shucked his own shirt and if she could have trembled herself she would have, but she felt that tremble vicariously as her other self laid her hands on his chest, tracing invisible lines with her fingertips, appreciating the artistic nature of her pale Irish hands against his bronze flesh._

_* **Ok, Q, I’ve had quite enough of this**.* **_

Kathryn felt his fingers expertly release the clip in her hair that had held part of her hair up. It gently fell around her face and he laced his fingers through it. She almost asked him why he loved her hair. She had previously caught him staring at her hair on a few occasions when they had been on Voyager. She had always hated her hair. But if he loved it so much, she would let him indulge in playing with it. Her head automatically tipped back as his lips found her jaw then feathered their way down her throat and her knees nearly buckled. She moaned quietly in her throat. That had been a new experience. The hollow of her throat had always been a weakness for her but never had anyone made her knees go weak. She wrapped her arms around him, her nails drawing lines over his shoulders. Then his fingers released her bra and she dropped her arms to let it slide down to join her tunic on the floor. Her nipples had already pebbled but now they hardened against the brush of cool air. It wasn’t long before his hands cupped her breasts, his palms brushing her nipples She trembled and her nails found purchase in his shoulders to keep herself upright and a full moan ripped its way from her throat.

“Oh, Chakotay,” she sighed.

**_**Q, this has been fun but it really is time to end this. Please, Q.*_ ** _Her mind was flooded with the emotion and desire from her other self. She knew what was to come. She couldn’t do this again. Even if she was merely observing, the point was it had already happened. It was over. What was the point in dredging up what was already resolved? What did Q intend to accomplish with showing her this, cruelly making her relive one of the most amazing moments in her entire life? Chakotay was forbidden fruit so long as they were on Voyager. Unless Q intended to send them home after this ridiculous escapade, then it was truly a moot exercise. Then he was unbuttoning his pants and she screamed. This was truly torture. There had to be a way to close this out, to not see, to not feel._

**_*Dammit, Q! Where the hell are you? I demand you remove me from this!*_ ** _**_

He stood before her, nude and completely comfortable and confident. She felt slightly embarrassed as she took a moment to drink him in. His physique was solid, firm, and muscular. She had expected a little softness, but his uniformed look was deceiving. He was a large man, solid as a rock. And speaking of rocks, her eyes lingered for a moment on his erection standing firmly at attention. He was a bit larger than she had anticipated, larger than her previous lovers had been. Then the other tattoo caught her eye. It started at his groin and scrawled up over his left hip: black lines that were weaved and laced together in a distinct pattern that was obviously tribal in nature, though she had no clue as to its meaning. She turned to look up at him, the question poised on her lips.

“The design signifies one who has found peace,” he told her, gently taking her hand and laying it against his inked flesh.

She traced the design. “You got this...for me?” She had never had anyone permanently mark their body for her. It touched her deeply. After she finished following the lines with her fingertips, she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and closing her hand around the shaft of his hard length, her fingers unable to touch her thumb around his girth. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a moment and she wondered if he was willing himself to be calm. She let her thumb roll over his head and was rewarded with a few slippery droplets. She smiled a little, then realized he was staring at her again, his dark eyes enveloping her in love, in warmth. A few more swirls of her thumb and even more slippery droplets.

“Should I stop?” She whispered huskily. She didn’t want to send him over the edge if he was close. Presumably, it had been a while for both of them.

_**The feel of him in her hand again… No, no, no. Damn Q. Damn him straight to whatever hell his people may have had. She was drowning in the euphoria, the arousal of her other self. She had tried detaching herself from the events, attempted to evoke a true bubble barrier in which to encapsulate her consciousness apart from her other self and all that she was forced to endure as a result of Q’s sick, twisted game. She heard him tell her no, she didn’t have to stop and she purred a comment back about his impeccable self-control. He had chuckled and assured her that she was proving a great test to that self-control. Witnessing the memory like this made her wonder things now she hadn’tconsidered then. She pondered how long it truly had been for him, then instantly hated herself for thinking of Seska. She had to admit that when she had learned that they had previously been involved it had made her hate the impertinent Bajoran even more. And then to discover she was a Cardassian turned that hate to utter loathing. She had secretly wanted vengeance for how she had manipulated Chakotay, how she had embarrassed him, and tried to rob him of his masculinity._

_His fingers played along the waist line of her pants and she truly wanted to give herself over to the feelings that were swirling within her other self. She wanted to indulge and enjoy being the third party, observing all the subtleties that had escaped her when her mind had been so thick with desire and laden with her love for him. But she couldn’t. If she let herself go now, when Q eventually returned her to the present, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to keep him at arm's length again. She felt the fabric slip down her legs to pool at her ankles, leaving his mouth level with the curve of her pubis. He inhaled deeply, taking in her scent, willingly allowing himself to be assaulted by her pheromones. He leaned in and nuzzled his nose against the neatly cropped dark curls that glinted auburn in the shadowy light then she felt the burning heat from his tongue as he tasted her._

**_*Q! You have to stop this. Please. Okay. I am begging. Do you hear me!? I am begging you to make this stop, right now!*_ ** _She was really starting to get worried. What if something had happened to him and she was stuck like this? What would happen in her timeline? How could she stand to be a conscious observer in her own brain, yet with no control? She tried to regain her calm. Maybe Q was waiting for her to quit fighting and just let the experiences of her memories overtake her. No. She wouldn’t do it. She **couldn’t**. She steeled herself against all that was happening around her, the quaking of the body of her other self as he elicited an orgasm from her. **_

Her fingers threaded through his smooth, cropped hair, her knees buckling as he caught her in his hands, cupping her bare bottom and guiding her back to lay on the bed without ever losing contact with her. She felt the stubble on his cheeks gently scratch her thighs. She moaned, knowing there was no one to hear her unashamed passion. Her hips rose and his hands were under her as she arched against his mouth, his fingers digging into her fleshy buttocks. “Chakotay—oh, Chakotay, please!” She cried out as he sent her crashing over the edge. She was reaching for him then, gripping his arms to bring him up level with her. Then his body was covering her like a blanket, shielding her from the chill in their shelter but more than that, shielding her from the universe.

He shifted against her, his eyes containing nothing but love, passion, and adoration. He lay still for several long moments, then cupped her chin with one of his palms before setting his mouth against her own.

She tasted his mouth, filled with the taste of herself on his lips and tongue. She didn’t mind at all. His lips moved with hers, their tongues tangling in a private dance that belonged to just them. She felt as though she had never been kissed like this before, never kissed anyone like this before. Then, with a roll of his hips, he was inside of her, filling her so full of himself as her body gripped him like a glove. His eyes closed and she knew he hadn’t fully been prepared for the sensation of actually being held so intimately inside of her and was reinforcing his self-control.

“Chakotay, I love you,” she whispered, his eyes finding hers then. His mouth dropped to hers again and he moved within her, slowly at first, deliberately.

_**She mentally gasped. She had forgotten, oh how she had forgotten the exquisite sensation of making love with him. She had forgotten how it felt to have him inside of her. Shutting out the feelings that were cascading through her other self was becoming impossible. She wanted to fight, but oh the thickness of desire was like a fog in the brain of her other self and she couldn’t escape it. She recognized the orgasmic wave that was about to crash through her, felt the tightening in her lower abdomen. She was going to let go and ride this through with her other self this time. Let Q win at whatever game this was. ***Oh my, Chakotay,*** she thought as the voice of her other self cried out the same words. The vibrations in her body intensified as his hips slammed into hers. She felt the waves swelling, preparing to swallow closed over her before she exploded. She heard him call out her name and she knew she was about to be lost to him forever.**_

“Ooo, this is the best part.”

She shook herself back to awareness and realized that she was back in her own body watching her other self in the throes of ecstasy with Chakotay. And she was watching this scene with Q of all people. She turned Turning on her heel, she dashed out of the shelter into the night.

“We are not going to watch that,” she stated firmly.

“You assume I haven’t already.”

She turned, staring at him with an open mouth. “You...what?!”

“Please, Kathy. However if it soothes your modesty then no, I most certainly didn’t. Besides, I had aims to find out your intimate secrets for myself.”

“Q!”

“Gotta be the tattoo,” he muttered.

She couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. Knowing he had a permanent mark on his body for her had touched her deeply. It meant more than she ever could have expressed in words. “Maybe not _the_ tattoo, but perhaps _a_ tattoo.”

“The one you took to tracing with your tongue?”

She whirled on him, her jaw had fallen open. “You told me you didn’t…”

“Kathy, need I remind you that I have seen you in far greater compromising situations than making love with Chuckles. Omnipotent, all knowing—remember? But as far as tattoos goes, why stop at the forehead and the hip? Did you know that in the 20th century, men used to tattoo their…”

“YES! Yes, Q, I am aware.” She had seen some rather disturbing images in texts about the mutilation and artistic license some individuals in past cultures took with their bodies.

The moment of silence that settled in on them was a blessing. She was trying to put her thoughts in order, reconcile the emotions churning deep within her. She knew the outcome of this particular affair as well. They had pushed their little beds together so they could sleep next to one another, had made love in the river, in the woods, in the bathtub that he made for her. They were like a couple of teenagers, indulging in each other, reveling in their love for one another. However, they had uncovered a love within each other that could only have ripened with adult maturity. It far exceeded the level of the reckless infatuation she’d experienced with Cheb, or the blissful first real love she had found with Justin, or the safe haven love she had found with Mark. That which she had found in Chakotay was everything she had always desired in an ideal lover.

Then she’d been forced to shut it all down, to return to the constricting grip of her uniform and all of the responsibilities that came with it. She had wanted to hate Tuvok and her crew for returning for them, for disobeying her orders, but she couldn’t. They had ultimately made the right decision. She knew that the Kathryn in love whose head she had just occupied would wrap a steel grip around her emotions, her love, and all but close herself off to Chakotay. She would find herself wondering how they could ever salvage a friendship after what they had experienced.

He would be broken hearted. She would read it on his face but know that there was nothing she could do to comfort him, to ease the pain of her return to chastity, to her philosophy of _Voyager_ and her crew first and there being no room for Kathryn. It was the logical way. How could she be involved with him romantically knowing she might lose him? She knew how she had been after losing Justin. She couldn’t fall into a despondent depression like that when she had over 150 lives depending on her. The price was too high to allow herself to indulge. It had to be that way, even if he couldn’t understand her reasoning.

She gazed wistfully at their little home. There were moments when she had found herself perfectly content to live out her life freely in love with him. After she had come to terms that they would not be leaving, she had felt a freedom she hadn’t known before and it had been intoxicating.

“Wishing you had stayed? Because I can always reset the scene and put you back in.”

“No. I don’t think there is anything else I can gain from this experience,” she replied quietly. She had learned why she loved Chakotay as she did. It wasn’t about being attracted to his recklessness and boldness, or the fact that he was so similarity minded to her, or that he was safe. He was all of those things and so much more.

“Then let’s move on.”

She heard the familiar snap of his fingers as she tried to take a mental photograph of the scene on New Earth. She had forgotten how beautiful their little paradise had been and she didn’t want to forget again.

***

Suddenly she was in a not so beautiful place. A hellish vista in the middle of a storm. It was dark but she caught sight of emergency lights coming from a shuttle. It had apparently crashed as she could smell the acrid odor of burning circuitry, hot metal. Lightning flashed angrily as the shuttle door opened and she saw Chakotay carrying her lifeless body out of the damaged shuttle. He found a rather sheltered area near a rock face and laid her down, dropping the emergency med-kit next to her.

_“Hang on, Kathryn.” He pinched her nose and breathed into her lungs, giving her the kiss of life, then began pumping her chest._

She watched as he worked over her, performing basic CPR on her dying body. She remembered this all too well: the time an alien had impersonated her father and tried to draw her into his matrix. But this was _before_ he had invaded her mind...

_“Breathe!” Chakotay ordered as he continued chest compressions, then alternated between breathing life into her lungs. As he struggled to resuscitate her, he became increasingly distraught. “Don’t you die on me, Kathryn, start breathing!” Another breath of air into her lungs. “Breathe, dammit, breathe!”_

She saw the pain on his contorted face, the anguish, the distress. She felt like she was breaking as she watched him, fearful at losing her, terrified that she was dying. Watching his emotional display over her other self, she swallowed hard. The love she had all but ordered concealed was displayed all over his face in the agony.

_“Don’t do this to me, Kathryn! Come on, Kathryn, breathe! Don’t you die on me!”_

Watching from the outside, as she had done before, she hadn’t seen what she was seeing this time. Before, her understanding of what was happening had been disjointed due to the matrix alien's machinations. Even after it had all transpired, she still hadn't been certain what was real and what had been a hallucination. But Q wouldn’t be showing her a hallucination. _This_ had really happened. Chakotay, desperate to breathe life back into her, his sobbing cries. His pain at the notion of losing her.

_“COME ON!” he cried out, giving her another breath. When she didn’t respond, he cradled her lifeless body in his arms and the tears escaped his eyes. “NO! KATHRYN!” Her name a broken cry of sheer pain. “You can’t die!” He sobbed over her body, holding her tightly as his forehead touched hers. “I love you, Kathryn,” he whispered as his tears landed on her cheeks. “Don’t leave me, please.”_

“Commander?”

Tuvok’s smooth, always calm voice caused Chakotay to look up and find himself staring at the Doctor and the dark Vulcan. “You've got to save her!” he ordered, relinquishing his embrace on her body and backing away slightly to allow the Doctor to set to work.

“Commander, I need some space, please,” the Doctor stated then immediately set to work on his patient as Chakotay moved slightly more.

“This is why we cannot have a relationship. Q, don’t you see what it would do to him if he lost me? What if I were killed in the line of duty? How could he possibly carry on to lead _Voyager_ home?”

“Kathy, you weren’t involved in a relationship with him during this particular mission and yet he was still deeply impacted by your death. He loves you. Whether you are together or not, any death you suffer will still emotionally gut him. Looks like you will have to depend on your trusty, reliable pet Vulcan to be _Voyager's_ salvation if something were to happen to you.”

She didn’t want to admit that he was right. They weren’t involved and hadn’t been since New Earth, yet the pain, the anguish, the devastation of what would happen to him were she to die was laid out right there for her to see. When he had thought she had died, it had broken him. And she was hardly in a position to order him how to feel. She had all but done that when she had avoided him, turned down the temperature between them, and kept their relationship strictly professional upon their return from New Earth—at least until she was sure he’d had enough time to rectify his feelings for her so they could proceed with a manageable relationship.

She looked on as the Doctor successfully expelled the matrix alien from her mind and Chakotay helped her to her feet, protectively wrapping an arm around her waist as they headed towards the waiting shuttle. After the Doctor gave her a clean bill of health, they had gone holodeck sailing on Lake George. The whole evening he looked as though he had something perched on his lips, just waiting to spill out, but she trusted him not to open that chasm, and he hadn’t.

She was feeling very raw and tired. The effects of the Jameson were long gone and she was desperately wishing he would allow her just one drink. Her mind was a cluster of turbulent emotions, mingled with realizations and truths she had long denied or lied to herself about.

“Dare I ask what’s next?”

“The only thing left.”

And she knew. She was soon going to be whisked away to the future and accompanied by Q in yet another ridiculous costume. She sighed and gestured with her hand for him to carry on. She didn’t like the taunting grin that seemed to creep across his face as he knowingly snapped his fingers once again.


	6. Chapter 6

When her vision cleared, the place she found herself in was unfamiliar. But that was only logical if this was the future. She couldn’t have expected to know what places might be included in her future.

Turning to her travel companion for guidance, she let out a shocked yelp. Presumably, it was still Q who accompanied her. But, from his appearance, she couldn’t be certain as she had always seen him in human form. This creature towering over her was nothing short of a nightmare of the likes conjured by the brains of children.

He stood nearly four meters tall, casting his shadow upon her. His body was long and sinewy and covered in grey fur that blended into a dark brown and finished in a red scaly tail she could see swishing behind him. At the top of his head in the very center was a horn flanked by a set of antlers which only served to accentuate his height. As if there wasn’t enough on top of his head, two triangular ears poked up from outside the antlers. Piercing golden eyes held her in their gaze and a curly white beard hung from his chin that clashed with the mane of black hair that flowed down the back of his head and past his shoulders. His arms were as yellow as his eyes, muscular like a lion but ending in the talons of an eagle. From the back of his shoulders grew purple wings tipped with blue feathers that stuck out from the shimmering green and yellow robe he wore. She was almost curious to see his feet which were hidden by the robe—that is, if he had any.

“Did you suffer a transporter accident?” she asked. He reminded her of the time when a transporter malfunction had combined Tuvok and Neelix into one person. Only Q looked like he was the combination of about ten different creatures.

“I am the angel of death and all those who fall in my shadow shall never take another breath!” he announced in a voice that was quite unnerving.

Her shock faded to amusement. “I hate to disappoint you, Q, but you finally got this one wrong. The angel of death is clad in a black hooded robe and to look upon his face or to touch him means certain death.”

“The form I occupy makes no difference. You humanoids! At one point or another in your evolution, you all seem to adopt fantastical creatures of the mythological sort to worship or live in fear of. This particular being is called Dis’Khordt and he is the death courier of a planet located in the galaxy you know as Andromeda. It is said to fall in his shadow is to guarantee a sentence of eternal misery and labor in the afterlife as his minion: an afterlife reserved for only the worst offenders in mortal life.”

“Q, while this is certainly a fascinating lesson about a species I have no hopes of encountering in my lifetime, what does this ridiculous creature have to do with me?” She couldn’t help the look of amusement on her face. She could feel the urge to burst out laughing tickling her stomach.

“Fine, fine!”

She watched him transform before her eyes and after a mere flash of light he returned to the customary dark haired human male form she knew. This time, he was clad in a cream colored robe trimmed in gold that held some familiarity in design to a Starfleet dress uniform. He wore his captain's pips on his chest. The bodice was form fitting but, at the waist, flowed into layers of fabric that made up the gown of the robe. Over his eyes, he wore a shimmering gold blindfold that was see through. In his right hand, he held a set of gold scales and, in his left, a double edged sword.

“Perhaps Justitia is more appropriate?”

“Are you planning to judge me?”

Q laughed. “No, dear Kathy, it is my sincere hope that you will take a lesson from this experience I am affording you and rectify the _in_ justice you have done to yourself.”

She considered his statement for a moment. She knew nothing of this future. How did he know she wouldn’t be happy with how things turned out? “And what if I find this future completely acceptable?”

He captured her in a knowing gaze. “We shall see, won’t we? For now, I am leaving you.”

She turned to him then, almost fearful that he was dumping her in a time and place she knew nothing about. “Where am I? _When_ am I?” She hadn’t seen anything in the room they stood in that was remotely recognizable to her.

“I thought you were an explorer, Kathy. This is a time and place I am leaving you to explore on your own. Go out the door and down the hall to the left. The scene will burst upon you momentarily. Adieu for now, Madame Captain.” He didn’t waste a moment before disappearing from existence.

She left the room that appeared to be an office. She didn’t want to go poking around someone else’s office unless she was forced to. She highly doubted that anyone would see her nor notice if she misplaced anything, but that didn’t change her feelings about starting to open drawers and cabinets.

Following Q's directions, she found herself in a wide open formal living room that was decorated for Christmas. A traditional blue spruce nearly five meters tall filled the center of the room with twinkling lights and shining ornaments, a silver star perched at its top. The fireplace had boughs of holly hanging from it with stocking hung every half meter—four in total. The room smelled of pine and cinnamon tangled up with charred wood, fragrances that were woven into the memories of Christmases of her childhood. If she could have designed and decorated a home, this would have been the living room in her own home. Maybe this _was_ her home. The furniture looked comfortable and inviting around the tree, the rug in front of the fire place begged her to take her shoes and socks off and curl her toes in the fur. One wall was comprised of nothing but windows and looked out onto snow-covered hills with even more puffy flakes falling. For all she could tell, she was in Indiana. Then the sound of laughter interrupted her pondering.

Kathryn turned towards the merry sound and suddenly two children burst into the room, bounding onto the cozy couch that provided them with a comfortable landing spot. She had nearly ducked behind a piece of furniture, fearful that they would see her, but they gave no indication they had.

“Kole, I told you that Santa only comes _after_ we have gone to sleep.”

“I want to see him, Crim! I want to see if he really has a sleigh and reindeer.”

“Well, how _else_ would he get around?”

Kole shriveled up his nose. “A transporter would be much more efficient.”

Crim stuck out her tongue. “Daddy has always told us just because things are old and traditional doesn’t mean they are bad or don’t work. And reindeer are cute.”

Kathryn watched the banter between these children. The girl appeared to be about eight years old, the boy about five. The girl was dark skinned with blue eyes. Her hair was scarlet red with dark auburn undertones. The boy was black haired, with chocolate eyes and pale skin. Her children. They had to be. She could see features that resembled herself. And she knew exactly where the dark undertones came from. These had to be her and Chakotay’s children! What could be so bad about a future where they were apparently married and had children?

As if on cue, he entered the room and her heart quickened. He looked much the same as she knew him, except for a few more lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth and he was less salt and pepper but more grey. It made him look even more distinguished. She loved the look on him.

“Daddy, daddy!” the children cried in unison.

“Daddy, will you read us our Christmas story?” the girl added.

“And which one would that be, Crimson, darling?”

“T’was The Night Before Christmas, of course!” she exclaimed as he sat in an oversized chair and she bounced into his lap.

“I’ll get it!” Kole announced before dashing to the bookshelf in the corner of the room.

She gazed at them lovingly. This was truly all she had ever wanted and had always been denied. She settled onto the arm of the chair next to Chakotay and the daughter they had named Crimson. She reached out, wishing she could brush her fingers through her daughter’s hair which looked as smooth as corn silk as it brushed her waist in long curls. She wanted to feel the warmth of this beautiful creation she and Chakotay had made. Then Kole was leaping onto Chakotay's other knee. Her son. Her beautiful little man with his wide dark eyes. They were a beautiful blend of the two of them. She reached out again and tried to caress his cheek but her fingers went right through him. She loved them and she didn’t even know them. She wanted to wrap her arm around Chakotay’s neck and kiss his cheek while they settled in as a family for a story. Q was insane. How could she not want this future? How could she want to change a thing—

“Who would like a Christmas sugar cookie?”

Kathryn’s head snapped around to the sound of the feminine voice that was not her own and she stared in bewilderment. She didn’t know this petite woman who had short auburn hair and dark eyes. Who was she and what was she doing on their home?

“I do! I do!” The children cried out in unison again, reaching for the platter she carried.

“Mommy, you make the best cookies ever!” Kole announced.

“I’ll second that, son,” Chakotay heartily agreed with a mouthful of cookie. “Your mother has always been a genius in the kitchen.” He gazed lovingly at her, a gaze she returned as she reached out and brushed a crumb from his lip before leaning in and touching his lips quickly with hers.

“Such things you say,” she smiled, setting the tray on the coffee table and then seating herself on the arm of the chair next to Kole.

Kathryn couldn’t breathe. She looked at the woman opposite of her. _Mommy_. She was these children’s mother. She was Chakotay’s wife. How had this happened? Kathryn leapt to her feet and separated herself from the family that should have been her own. She then noticed the framed photographs on the mantle of the fireplace and she looked them over. They were a timeline of Chakotay’s life. The first was a picture of him and the woman with a mountain vista behind them. The next was on a tropical island. He was dressed in a tux and she was in a wedding dress. Then there was one of them holding the little red haired girl as a tiny infant and the next one was of them with the infant boy, followed by progressive family pictures as the children aged.

She felt a burning ache in her chest. She had felt this ache before but never so deep and hurtful. She had loved Chakotay and she thought she had expressed to him that their relationship had to put on hold until _Voyager_ was home safely but then, maybe they could see what kind of a life they could make together. What had happened?

She noticed the story had been finished and the children had disappeared. Chakotay and his wife reentered the room. He took a seat in the cozy chair near the fireplace and she slid into his lap.

“Do you think they will be excited about the hover bikes Santa is going to leave them?” she asked.

“They will be out of their minds, Tessa,” he laughed. “I can’t wait to see their faces!”

“Speaking of excited faces, are you prepared for a Christmas gift of your own?” she asked, pressing kisses along his collar line.

“Hm?” he groaned deep in his throat, a hand cupping her bottom and drawing her deeper into his lap.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered as her lips touched his ear.

“What? You’re certain?!” he leaned back, gazing at her wide eyed.

“Yes! With all of the difficulty we had conceiving Crim and Kole, I just thought I was ill, but I dropped by and saw the Doctor this afternoon when I was in San Francisco—and sure enough. Fourteen weeks. Do you want to know?”

He hugged her tighter. “Of course!”

“Twins. A boy and a girl,” she told him, the smile on her face was ear to ear.

“Tessa, that’s…. That’s incredible!” he replied, overjoyed.

“Q, I have seen enough. I can’t stand this anymore,” she said aloud, knowing he could hear her, knowing he was watching her heart collapse.

Kathryn left the overjoyed couple to their excitement. This was wrong. So wrong. Fleeing the room, she found her way to the kitchen. If she could have poured herself a glass of wine, a very deep glass of wine, she would have.

Q was still dressed in the ridiculous cream gown, though he had discarded the sword, scales, and blindfold. He was flipping through the book Chakotay had read to the children.

“Honestly, you humans. You found Dis’Khordh distasteful, yet you allow your offspring to indulge in the idea of an obese man pulled around the world by reindeer in a sled so he can break into everyone’s houses, eat their food, and leave toys as a peace offering for his offenses? Seriously?”

“Can we please leave? I am glad that Chakotay has a wonderful, happy life, but I don’t want to be here any longer.”

“Poor Kathy. She doesn’t quite have your infamous icy gaze. What did your crew lovingly call it? The 'death glare'?”

She fixed him with the gaze he had referenced. “Q, is it necessary to make me feel even worse?” Before he could reply, she changed the subject. “So, _Voyager_ gets home.”

“ _Voyager's_ future is purely subjective based on decisions you and your crew make. However, your own personal future _is_ fairly certain if you keep on the path you are on right now. In this particular version of events, your precious ship and majority of your crew will make it home safe and sound. And yes, as you can see, your dear Chuckles does very well for himself. His darling wife there reminds me of someone, doesn’t she? Now who does she look like? Oh, yes. That would be you. At least, he was fairly consistent regarding hair color. Seems he prefers the reddish tone—Seska, you, Tessa. But wasn’t it nice to see a reasonable approximation of what your children would have looked like?”

“Q, please don’t be cruel.”

Q raised an eyebrow. “Darling Kathy, have I struck a heart chord? I haven’t even begun. Aren’t you curious how your own life ended up?”

“I can probably guess. Only two outcomes are probable. Either I am a member of the admiralty or I faced a court martial and lost. I am hoping for the first option.”

“Would that fulfill you?”

“Perhaps. It wouldn’t be the worst outcome.”

“You expect the pips on your collar to keep you warm? Will that uniform wrap its arms around you and love you? Come now, Kathy, under that icy exterior is a woman aching to be loved. But if you think your uniform is going to give you the love you need, by all means, let’s see what has become of you as a result of this stagnant path you have opted to take.”

She threw her arms wide. “Take it away, Q. Show me just how terrible life turns out.” She was beginning to grow accustomed to traveling by finger snap.

“As you command, _Admiral_ ,” he responded with the familiar snap.

***

 

_**She was in her own head again, swimming through the intoxicated ocean of her future self's thoughts. It was an oddity, being locked in a bubble of sobriety within a mind that had been taken over by the effects of liquor. She wished she was still drunk herself. She would have liked to have joined her elder self in a drink. After this evening, she really needed it. She didn’t want to admit it, but Q had opened her eyes to the fact that her romantic entanglements had all turned out to be disasters. Maybe she shouldn’t have expected that kind of happiness and a full career, too. That was apparently asking too much._

_She quelled her own thoughts and decided to tune into what was happening in the brain of her elder self. Q had called her ‘Admiral’ before he had dropped her into this version of herself. Surely, things couldn’t be too terrible. She was a celebrated hero. She brought Voyager home and completed her mission. Even if things hadn’t worked out for Chakotay and herself, that was livable so long as she had her career.**_

He had told her she needed to stop—that she was in danger. He said he cared about her. But she didn’t care. She had come to like spending her private moments out of control, loose. She didn’t want to be lucid. When she was lucid, she had to be reminded that all she had was the job. He had threatened that and she had threatened that he could have a mechanical accident. He couldn’t keep her from how she decided to spend her off hours even if she paid for it in the morning. He told her the prognosis was not good. She told him she no longer wanted updates. He threatened to report her. She challenged him to take from her all she had left. He had relented. For a hologram, he was damned annoying.

The mouth of the bottle cranked hard against the glass. She didn’t care if it broke. Let it shatter. She would swallow the glass. Maybe it would rip her apart inside so she could physically feel as terribly as she emotionally felt. No such luck. The glass was stronger than her unsteady grip. She poured until the glass was full, then set the bottle down and took a gulp from the glass as though it were water. Maybe she needed something stronger. It tasted like water. The burn was gone and it slipped down her throat easily.

She stood then from the easy chair to stagger over to her desk, cup in hand where she collapsed into the chair behind it. The world sloshed and swayed and she wondered if she was on a ship on the ocean. No. Her surroundings were familiar. This was her office at home. At least it looked like it. Maybe she was in a holo-simulation.

She opened her desk drawer, meaning to look for a stronger version of her favorite indulgence; instead, her hand came into contact with smooth metal. She gripped it with clumsy hands and pulled it out, not sure what she had found. As she raised the object to eye level, she realized that it was a photo frame and it contained a picture of him on a planet from fifteen some years prior.

Only fifteen years? She couldn’t seem to remember the date but it had to be something like that. It was a shorter time than she'd thought. She gazed at the photo through her swaying vision. They had been down by the river; the waterfall was just over his left shoulder. They had been planning their camping trip and had paused for a swim. The shot was from his chest up but she knew he had been nude, the sun warming his bronze skin, beads of water glistening and catching the light. The look in his eyes was nothing if not a look of love and adoration.

The tears burning her cheeks were unexpected. Her chest felt tight, the pain was intense. Where was this coming from? She had loved him. She had loved him, probably more intensely than she had loved any of her past lovers. Mark and...James and...no. Not James—Justin. And Chad. Chet. Cheb. That was it. Chakotay had been everything she had wanted in a man. And she fucked it up. Just like she fucked up everything. Well, except for getting _Voyager_ home and her career. She had gotten that right. Just like Daddy, the job came before everything.

Now, the job was all she had. Her mother had died five years back. At least she had still been alive to see her daughter come home to her. Edward’s Goldenbird had shown up in Federation space as easily and without warning just as she had disappeared.

And then Phoebe. The sister she had not appreciated in youth because they had been so different. The sister she had thought her parents had loved more. The sister who had brought her back to life after Josh…no, _Justin_ and her father had died on that expedition. No. It had been a field test of a shuttle her father had designed. And now Pheebs was gone too. She had been taking her artwork to Risa for a special event featuring artists of the UFP when the transport had been attacked by a group of renegade Romulans who opposed the peace treaty she had been working on.

Now, she had nothing. No one. The job. Always the job. She let her thumb press against Chakotay’s lips in the picture. Those lips that had kissed her, had set her on fire and made her forget the job had ever existed.

“Why couldn’t you just wait a little longer for me? Why couldn’t you understand? I _loved_ you, damn it! You promised me...always to be by my side. You promised to make—my burdens—lighter. You—promised….” she sobbed. Her chest filled with the pain and anguish of the years of tears she had suppressed. She had even gone to his wedding, smiled and congratulated him and Tonya… Tara… Tessa. Whatever. And she had pretended to be thrilled at the birth of his kids whose names she couldn’t even begin to remember. She clutched the photo to her chest as the pain began to overwhelm her. She heard her console chime with an incoming message as she tried to stand. She lost her balance then, dizziness engulfed her and she gasped at the intensity of the pain that hit her. She wondered if there was something wrong as she lost her balance, her hand hitting the console, accepting the message and opening the channel as she fell into darkness.

_**She was panicking. She knew there was something wrong with her elder self. The pain was far too intense to just be normal heartache. She was lucid, whereas her elder self was numbed by the alcohol she had consumed. She, on the other hand, felt every agonizing moment, the stabbing pain as the muscles in her chest felt like they were locking down on her lungs and heart in a vice grip. She was screaming, trying to find some way to tell her elder self to call the Doctor, to signal an emergency, SOMETHING! There was something terribly wrong._

_Then she heard Chakotay’s voice, calling her name. The open comm link. But she was falling. She felt the impact, but her elder self did not. The glass in the photo frame shattered and cut her hands but they gripped tight. She heard her throat release a weak cry and then silence. The pain remained but her elder self had lost consciousness and a stream of images seemed to flash through her mind…_

_....playing as a child and her father making his Goldenbird fly around the room over his head, the pouring rain of a thunderstorm that accompanied defeat, the warm sticky taste of caramel and chocolate swirling in her mouth with the bitter bite of black coffee, Cheb twirling her around a dance floor in her green dress, her reflection the first time she put on her Cadet uniform, graduation day at the Academy...._

_....Justin sliding a ring onto her finger and kissing her as she cried tears of joy, walking with Phoebe in the woods and feeling her body come back to life after she was sure she had frozen to death or had wanted to...._

_...Mark telling her he had picked up Molly from the kennel so she could be comfortable and have her pups in comfort, then Chakotay’s face on her viewscreen for the very first time and being angry at herself when her heart had skipped a beat...._

_Chakotay rubbing knots from her shoulders, Chakotay tossing her into the river and laughing gleefully before joining her to make love in their own paradise, Chakotay cradling her against his warmth on a cot that was impossibly small but somehow just right...._

The images faded to black and Kathryn felt nothing. It was an odd sensation to know that her own consciousness still existed, but the body that she had been feeling things through no longer felt anything and that the other consciousness had gone silent. Yet, she could still hear Chakotay’s worried voice calling to her from a distance. She wondered how long Q intended to leave her like this. Though she couldn’t be sure, she had a sickening feeling that she had just experienced the death of her elder self. She felt wrong. All wrong. Acceptance was failing her.

How had she gotten to this point? After all she and the crew of _Voyager_ had been through, how could she not have developed some lasting contacts? B’Elanna and Tom and Harry. Had Neelix come home with them, too? He was always finding her and seeing to her morale, even when she hadn’t wanted him too. Surely, she was still friends with Tuvok at least! What about Samantha and Naomi? The little girl who had been an unexpected passenger on her ship, yet had wormed her way into her heart. How had Chakotay not seen what was happening to her? How had she turned into this pitiful woman with a horrid existence in the depths of a bottle? She had heard horror stories of admirals who had died similar deaths, but had never dreamed she herself would become one of those casualties of the job....


	7. Chapter 7

 

Kathryn felt as though hours had passed before she heard noise. Maybe it had only been minutes. She had tried calling Q, but he was apparently ignoring her. She felt she had suffered enough; he obviously disagreed.

_**Footsteps on the hard floor approached. Her elder self had died with her eyes open so she could still see. However, her current consciousness had been left chained to a broken and dead body so she could only see the direction the eyes were facing. She didn’t have any ability to control this body._

_"Kathryn?"_

_Chakotay. She could hear his voice very close. The footsteps she had heard presumably belong to him. Then she was moving. She couldn’t tell through sensation, only because what the eyes could see changed. He rolled her over and her frozen eyes had a view of his face, worry lines etched into his forehead._

_"Kathryn? No… please, no."**_

He looked right into her frozen blue eyes and see wanted to tell him she was there, but she was powerless. Her elder self, the consciousness that had been in control of this body, was long gone. She was merely a trapped bubble from another time and place. She watched, waiting for his breakdown, waiting for him to crush this body in his arms and sob like he had before. But it didn’t happen. He scrubbed away his tears and then laid her carefully back on the floor, taking note of the framed photo she held in her dead hands.

_"I am so sorry for you, Kathryn. I am sorry you let yourself come to this. You deserved better than to die alone but you shoved us all out of your life," he told the corpse._

She felt her own bubble fill with a mental anguish. He acted as though he had expected to find her like this. Perhaps he had. And she was angry at herself. She could see him as he got up and walked over to her desk, finding the glass she had been drinking out of. He picked it up and finished the contents before sitting down at her desk and contacting the Doctor to let him know he had just found her deceased.

_"Captain, I tried to warn her that she was going to meet an early demise. Alcoholism is not a common malady these days, so it was surprising to me when I learned just how badly she had damaged her internal organs. She shut me out and threatened to decompile my program if I continued to warn her and refused all treatment."_

_"I just wish she had let us in. Her detachment started way back on Voyager and I finally gave up on her. It was hard to live on the receiving end of constantly being rebuked."_

_"A sad end to a legend. I will be there shortly to collect her body, Captain. I will also notify Starfleet."_

_"Thank you, Doctor." **_

She was suddenly assaulted with sensations and it took her a moment to realize she was back in her own functioning body. She was still trying to mentally process everything that had just happened and how she possibly could have died from alcoholism. She only drank the real stuff now and then. So she hadn’t socialized with the crew as easily as she had during the early days because she had to remember that she was their Captain before she was their friend. She had to still be able to do her job and not allow emotional attachments cause her to question her judgment when she was expected to make critical life and death decisions.

Q was by her side once again, though this time he was dressed like the angel of death, carrying the sickle and hooded in black. “They came to tell you goodbye. After all you have done to them, after the way you shut them out, turned them away, blasted them with your frigid exterior, they have come.” He gestured with the sickle and her gaze followed.

They were in a cemetery. The rolling hills were snow covered and through the snowdrifts, the tops of monuments could be seen. The vitality of human life remembered etched in rigid, gray marble; a contrary to the very nature of life if ever there was one.

More snow fell from the sky, silently accenting the scene as mourners gathered around the open grave and the coffin next to it; all of it was protected by a forcefield to keep the grave from filling with the delicate white powder.

She walked up to her casket and gazed down at herself. Her auburn hair had been touched by silver and there were lines at her mouth and in the corners of her eyes they she didn’t recognize. The dress uniform she wore was also unfamiliar; it was cream and gold and she assumed Starfleet must have changed uniforms at some point. She really was too young to be in her grave. The average human life span was in the range of one hundred twenty five to one hundred fifty years. By all accounts, she was still a young woman so she must have very badly damaged her body to have died this young. She had only lived half a life. And she had done it to herself. The notion nauseated her.

After the mourners took their seats, Chakotay took his place before the assembly and she immediately noticed he looked like he had aged more in the last couple of days. Considering his rather cold behavior towards finding her deceased body, this surprised her. She looked at the mourners and found that spotted his wife and children were in attendance. She then took count of B’Elanna and Tom Paris sitting together and was surprised to see blonde haired children sitting between them with faint Klingon forehead ridges. Harry Kim sat next to with a stunningly beautiful blonde with vibrant blue eyes and a figure that made her look like she had been sculpted rather than born. The only noticeable imperfection in her figure was the swell of pregnancy at her midsection, which could hardly be considered a real imperfection. She paused briefly to wonder at the metal that glinted on her face where her right eyebrow was. From this distance, she could only conclude it was some new kind of jewelry and she deduced that the woman was in some kind of artistic profession like a jewelry or clothing maker or model. The Doctor sat next to a lovely looking brunette woman who was not familiar to her. Tuvok was surrounded by his wife and children and grandchildren, looking rather aged and strangely distracted. She saw a few other familiar faces in the crowd and others, including children she didn’t know. Then her eyes settled on Sam Wildman and the gorgeous redhead next to her with delicate spikes on her forehead. Naomi. Seated next to Naomi were two other similarly spiked forehead children: a boy that was around ten Earth years and a girl who could have been the twin of the Naomi from her timeline. In Naomi’s hands, she clutched a worn, tattered silver package with frayed gold ribbons.

He kept remembering the blood covered photograph in the frame in her hands. He had blocked out his emotions at the time because he had been angry at her for being so foolish. She had all but committed a slow suicide. A cowardly death for a woman who had once been synonymous with greatness to him. The first moment he had seen her on his viewscreen all those years ago, when she had pressed herself against him when he had threatened to kill Tom Paris, he had loved her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen but it ran deeper than physical appreciation. He felt like lighting had struck him when their eyes met. He had been told that when you met your soulmate, it wasn’t something you consciously decided, it was just something you felt. And he had felt it. She had weaved her way into his soul and those last days on the _Val Jean_ had been a struggle when he knew all he wanted in the universe was to be by her side. He would have followed her anywhere. He wouldn’t have admitted it out loud but his heart had known.

“Words alone cannot manage to express what we are all feeling right now and words alone cannot capture the very essence of the woman we knew as Kathryn Janeway. There is a quote that says 'with greatness comes the glory of a heavy price.' There isn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that Kathryn Janeway was the epitome of greatness. She was our lighthouse—our beacon of hope that led us home against the odds. There isn’t a one of us who served on _Voyager_ who didn’t want to give up at one point or another except her. She made a difficult decision that destroyed our only known path home so she made us another one. We each owe her our lives for that. And she was rewarded in her career for carrying the burdens that brought her to greatness. However, she paid the price in other ways.” He paused then, his words being absorbed by all of those who each held their own opinions and feelings about her. “I had the privilege of knowing Kathryn as more than just our commanding officer. I loved her. She was a beautiful, loving, caring woman. Her fatal flaw was that she cared more for her crew than she did herself. She felt the only way to ensure the safety of her crew and to fulfill her promise to get us home was her self-imposed isolation and solitude. She felt if she got too close, she would jeopardize our safety. I wish I could have convinced her how very wrong she was. There isn’t a one of us sitting here now who can say that we don’t miss the early days when she would join us on the holodeck or away missions for some fun and relaxation. And for those who of us who had the privilege to see her smile, to see her laugh, to see her really let her guard down, we need to treasure those moments and remember that she was more than just the Captain of _Voyager_ but a woman who gave up everything to make sure we could find our way home and have everything.”

She felt her eyes well up as the distant sound of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" surrounded them. The casket lid was closed and Chakotay laid a single pink-peach rose on the polished wood—a rose identical to one he had given her in the distant past. Then he turned and walked away, leaving her in death to join his wife and children and the rest of his family, the _Voyager_ family as they began to disperse. She heard Tessa tell them that she would be preparing a meal for anyone who would like to gather at their home and several acknowledged and accepted the invitation.

She nearly turned to question Q when she noticed Naomi Wildman linger behind. She was wearing a uniform with a single pip on the collar. After everyone had moved on, she approached the closed coffin with the present still in her hand, her face a contorted mix of anger and sadness with tears on her cheeks.

“I wish I could tell you how angry I am at you and how selfish I think you are. All of these years I have held a little prickle of anger and I haven’t been able to let it go. I am sure you wouldn’t remember even if you were still alive but there was a Christmas a long time ago on _Voyager_ where I sacrificed too. Do you know how hard it was for me as a little girl to save my replicator credits so I could give you a present? To be so proud of myself and to be sad that I couldn’t give you what I wanted to and get my mom something as well? I am sure you don’t because you likely just thought of me as an inconvenience on your ship. An unplanned predicament that turned up and gave you one more thing to worry about. Besides my mom and Neelix, you were everything to me. You were my idol. If there was one person in my whole little world I wanted to be like, it was you. And yes, I am on the command track as we speak. One day, I will be Captain Wildman. But I was a fool when I was a little girl. To want to be like you. You were cold. You may have sacrificed your personal happiness for our crew and that was your problem. But to practically throw my present back in my face that I had so thoughtfully planned and worked to accomplish was just unforgivable. That is the moment when I really started to realize that you weren’t just the vestige of power and authority, but also a frigid bitch.” She tore the paper and ribbon from the present just then and sat a silver photo frame on the coffin. “This was one of the happiest days of my life and I am leaving this here to remind you of how things should have been.”

Kathryn watched as Naomi angrily whirled and walked away to go catch up with her family. The level of the anger and antipathy she heard from the young woman was like a knife to the chest and she felt terrible for the way she had brushed her off earlier that evening.

When she was gone, she closed in on the coffin and gazed at the frame. It was a dual frame; on the left was a photo of herself and Chakotay she hadn’t even known existed, though she knew from when. _Voyager_ had visited a beautiful planet that was like a garden, though she couldn’t remember what Neelix had called it. He said that it belonged to a race who prided themselves on their generosity and they kept it as a garden to feed travelers who may be hungry as replicator technology was unheard of. The planet was welcome to all those who traveled with one catch: an offering of seeds, technology, or historical texts was requested to be left at the temple. She had ordered a text of Earth history to be downloaded and left along with an abundance of seeds that had been replicated and also collected during their journey. While they had been collecting food stuffs, she had ordered shoreleave. She and Chakotay had been playing a game of beach volleyball and they had collided and ended up a heap in the sand. In the photo, they had recovered but were still sitting in the sand, she in his lap with his arms wrapped around her laughing as they gazed at one another. One of her hands was wiping sand from his face.

The other side of the frame held a photograph of the senior staff. Neelix and Kes were standing in the water, Tom, B’Elanna, and Harry sat on a dock with their legs in the water, she and Chakotay knelt behind them and the Doctor and Tuvok were standing behind the group. In the middle was Naomi. She had an arm wrapped around both her and Chakotay’s necks in a hug while she was sitting on Tom’s shoulders and was grinning brightly.

Kathryn remembered that day so very well. The laughter and fun. For a moment she had felt like she was at some big family reunion and the weight of her mission and _Voyager_ had just vanished. She had felt so happy, admittedly happier than she had been in ages. It was the closest she had been to Chakotay since their stay on New Earth. She had let her guard down and had felt the warmth of their love and friendship. These were the days she should have cherished and remembered because it really _could_ be like that. Even after all of their fun, when she had put her uniform back on, everyone had still respected her and everyone still followed her. Why _couldn’t_ she have it all? There were rumors that Picard joined his staff in holodeck games and poker and he commanded the flagship. Surely under _Voyager's_ circumstances, she could enjoy the company of those who had started to become more family than just crew. She wasn’t yet sure if her guard could ever be lowered enough to allow herself and Chakotay to explore a romantic entanglement—but she was willing to explore the avenues that could possibly lead there.

“I don’t want to die like this, Q. I don’t want this life.”

“Even if it means _Voyager_ doesn’t make it home any time soon, if at all during your lifetime?”

“Is that your endgame? Are you bargaining with me, Q? Always the catch?” She suddenly felt foolish that she hadn’t anticipated that his offer to change her perspective on her life would come with a price.

“Kathy, I am hurt. Why do you humans always believe I have an ulterior motive? No, my dear Captain, I was merely posing the question to test your intentions to embark on a different path.”

“I would rather spend my life on _Voyager_ and be happy than to die alone without any friends or family.”

Q grinned as though he had won a grand prize. “As you wish.” He snapped his fingers for the final time, concluding their journey.


	8. Chapter 8

She looked around and found herself in her quarters. She assumed Q dropped her back into her timeline exactly where he had plucked her from it, only she didn’t feel intoxicated and her bottle of Jameson was gone. She checked her secret hiding spot behind one of the bulkhead panels and it was still there, unopened, like the other eight bottles that remained.

“Computer, what is the current time?”

_“The current time is seventeen thirty hours.”_

“I have brought you back before the party, Kathy. You have the chance to redo the entire evening and start fresh.”

She couldn’t help shooting him a surprised look. “I guess I just assumed I would have to pick up the pieces and fix the mistakes I had already made.”

Q shrugged. “Consider it my Christmas gift to you. Now, how about an exchange of gifts?”

Kathryn laughed when a giant sprig of mistletoe appeared above his head and he puckered his lips obnoxiously. Instead of allowing herself to give in to annoyance, she walked over to him and reached up, pulling him down to her level. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek, right near the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you for everything,” she whispered.

Q opened his eyes, a mite disappointed but instead gave her a sheepish grin. “Can’t blame a Q for trying.” Then, with a snap of his fingers, she was dressed in a more adult version of the green party dress she had worn to her school dance with Cheb many years ago. This version was off the shoulders but not too low so as to appear vulgar. The bodice was corset style and flowed into a shimmering skirt in the softest and most delicate material she had ever touched. He had lengthened her hair a little and it was secured at the nape of her neck with a matching bow.

“The color suits your well. You look beautiful, Kathryn.”

It was probably the most sincere thing she had ever heard him say. She watched as he looked her up and down and, if she could name the look on his face she would have called it longing, perhaps. If things were different, maybe she might have more seriously considered the offer he had made to her in the past. But in so many ways he was a mirror of the immature love affairs she’d had in the past. No, her compass did not point her down the road towards omnipotence and bearing him immortal children and she had recognized that despite the temptation to her explorer's heart.

“Well, I am sure Chuckles and your new direction await. Adieu, dear Kathy.”

She hesitated for a moment, feeling on the cusp of a monumental change in direction and found herself experiencing a rare moment of apprehension. She had never allowed herself to believe that she could develop real friendships with her crew members. They had started to think of themselves as family whereas she had withdrawn from that. Would they welcome her back? Could she avoid the sad, miserable future she had seen and still manage to get them home in one piece? Part of her wanted to call Q back and ask him to show her the alternative but she doubted that he would. And it was Christmas. It wasn’t a time to be greedy. It was a time for new beginnings and that was exactly what she intended to create.

“Janeway to Chakotay,” she said after tapping the ever present comm badge on her chest.

_“Chakotay here. What can I do for you, Captain?”_

“I know it is a little late to ask—but I was wondering if you might do me the honor of escorting me to Neelix’s party this evening.”

_“Of course, Captain. I will be right over. Chakotay out.”_

She grimaced a little. In the past, he would have found permission in her invitation to call her by her first name. Had she really pushed him so far that they couldn’t drop rank for an evening? He was the only one on the ship who called her by her first name on occasion and he had always treated that privilege like a gift. She paced nervously and was glad that Q had thought to put her in ballerina flats in the same color as the dress.

When he finally did ring her door, she nearly jumped out of her skin. As was her nature, her brain kept playing devil’s advocate with itself and running down all of the reasons why this intention of hers was a terrible idea. But she quelled her instincts this time. She was not going to risk the alternative future she saw becoming a reality. The idea of Chakotay marrying and making babies with someone else was not a future she was prepared to have happen unless she at least gave them a chance at happiness together. She couldn’t let Naomi live with a seed of anger buried in her little heart. She couldn’t have the rest of them pitying her and wondering at why she kept them at arm's length.

“Come in,” she called.

When he stepped through the door, she had to suppress a grin at the expression that invaded his features. The look of surprise as his eyes swept over her from head to toe and back again was simply priceless. Q had very apparently chosen her attire well. She sent a mental thank you to him and nearly laughed at the idea that she was actually thanking him for something. Usually she was trying to throw him off her ship for his antics. Maybe she really was turning over a new leaf.

“Kath—er—Captain, you look lovely, if I may say.”

She smiled this time at his stumbling decision of how he might address her. “Thank you. But you know, Chakotay, it occurs to me that during the off hours, maybe you should call me Kathryn,” she teased, very similarly to how she had told him to call her Kathryn on New Earth several months back.

He gave her his dimpled grin then and sent her heart galloping. “I don’t think I’ll need a few days this time, Kathryn,” he replied with immediate recognition of her subtle reminder.

Her smile fell a little. “All playfulness aside, Chakotay, I feel I owe you an apology. If Kes were still here, it probably wouldn’t have taken me this long to get around to it because she would have already been on my case about how chilly things have been. The fact of the matter is that I was unprofessional and completely unfair to you. I was jaded, in a way, and expected my friendship with you to carry weight against your decision that I never should have expected to begin with. I cannot expect you or any other crew member to do as I would do merely because we happen to share a friendship. It was an unreasonable breach of the bonds of friendship and I am humbly hoping you will forgive me for stepping over the line. I am truly sorry for how I acted towards you.” It was the most heartfelt and humble apology she had ever given in her entire life.

Chakotay stared at her in disbelief. He was still mesmerized by her dress but then to hear her admit to her wrongs and completely own up to behaving unfairly to him, he couldn’t believe it and he nearly asked what had happened to the Kathryn Janeway he knew. It didn’t much matter. He liked this Kathryn Janeway better and he hadn’t believed it were possible to like her more than he already did. She seems warmer in a way, more inviting, even more in tune to his feelings. He had come to escort her to the party, expecting that the most recent incident would be just another disagreement they would sweep under the rug of their friendship and try to pretend didn’t exist.

“Kathryn, I accept your apology and I may have to make one of my own.”

She fixed her eyes upon him, curiously. “For what?”

Chakotay smiled again. “For my conduct if we don’t leave your quarters and get to the party. You have absolutely no idea how enticing that dress is on you.”

Her cheeks burned scarlet then and the old her would have shut him down in an instant for such a comment that was completely out of line and she could see him waiting for her reaction. “Oh? Is that so, Commander? Perhaps you will get the opportunity to make your apologies to me in the morning. For now, let’s not keep the others waiting.” She turned on her heel just then and paused only for a moment before stepping through the door that had opened for her, leaving him staring after her, drop-jawed at her quip.

It didn’t take him long to catch up to her and offer her his arm, which she happily accepted. She still couldn’t believe the words that had come out of her mouth and she half wondered if Q was working her like a marionette, but she knew better. This was a new lease on life for her and she was going to explore it to the fullest extent.

“I have to be honest, Kathryn. I am speechless.”

She turned to him as they entered the lift and ordered their destination. “Let me guess, you expected that I might make a brief appearance at the party and then slip away as quickly as possible? That would be completely in character for me as of lately, wouldn’t it? Well, Chakotay, I can promise you this, there are going to be some changes in the way I relate to the crew. I may even develop some real friendships with some of them.”

“I see. And to what do we owe this change in your demeanor, not that I am complaining one bit.”

A small smile crept across her lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Let’s just say that I had a unique opportunity to gain insight into the direction my life was going and it wasn’t a very pretty way to reach the end of this mortal coil. For now, let’s just enjoy Neelix’s party and see where the evening takes us, shall we?”

Before he could say another word, the doors swished open and everyone in the room stopped to stare at them and he felt proud to be escorting the most beautiful woman on the ship to this holiday gathering.

Kathryn released herself from Chakotay’s arm and set about mingling with her crew. When Tom Paris swept in to kiss her cheek, she anticipated his move and had determined she was going to get him just like she had when she had played dumb about pool that first time in Sandrine's. At the last second, she turned her head and made sure his lips found hers.

“Lieutenant, I think that was the briefest moment I have ever spent under the mistletoe,” she laughed, watching the red in his face subside a bit when he realized she wasn’t going to verbally roast him in front of the crew for kissing her.

“The night is still young, Captain,” he called back, his playful mood returning.

“That it is, Tom,” she agreed, knowing Harry was swooping in at her shoulder. She let him think he was being sneaky as he planted a kiss high on her cheekbone.

“Merry Christmas, Captain,” he said as she strategically removed herself from under the dangerous little sprig before anyone else in the room got any bolder ideas.

“You too, Harry,” she grinned brightly, catching sight of Tuvok as he drifted about the room. She excused herself from the company of Tom and Harry, watching as they made their way across the room to join B’Elanna, Sam Wildman, and a couple of others at a table near a window.

“Tuvok, I am glad to see you came,” she said. She was feeling very joyous inside but knew his disdain for the crew's social gatherings and fully intended to relieve him.

“I was under the assumption that my attendance was mandatory, Captain,” he replied in his ever so smooth tone ~~.~~

“While I think it is important for the crew to see you attend these functions and I am glad to see you did so of your own accord rather than me ordering you to attend, I won’t be doing that to you again, old friend. From now on, if you choose to attend, I know the crew welcomes you. If you choose not to, I won’t say a word.”

If a Vulcan could, he would have looked surprised and perhaps even a bit relieved. Rather than express any bubbling of emotion he may have been but would have denied feeling, he thanked her.

Once again, she excused herself and moved in Neelix’s direction. He was carrying a tray followed by other crewmen carrying additional trays of delicacies and treats from across two quadrants. She was bemused by the fact that Tuvok did not make an immediate exit but instead struck up a conversation with Vorik.

“Captain, _there_ you are! You absolutely must try the nog’de tullet!”

She accepted the cup from him of frothy grass-green puree and started to wonder if her new lease on life had to include putting her stomach at risk of hazardous exposure, but she silenced her ever skeptical mind and tossed back the drink. An explosion of flavor filled her mouth that started like biting into a kiwi and finished in a nutty caramel cream.

The Doctor appeared just then, humming a rendition of "Jingle Bells". “Ah, Captain, what a delightful party. And a good thing I will be on hand for the cases of hangover following exposure to Mr. Paris’ punch.”

“Doctor, you certainly are taking this lightly. Normally, you are asking me to practically demote Mr. Paris for your increased work load.” Had he turned over some new subroutines in his programming?

“Isn’t there an old saying? 'If you can’t beat them, join them?' Well, in this instance I may have beat Mr. Paris at his own game. You see, I have never had a day off. And now that I am an autonomous member of the crew, I booked a little holodeck time for tomorrow and worked out the scheduling with the Commander—which means that Mr. Paris has the early shift in Sickbay tomorrow morning,” he reported proudly.

“Poor Tom isn’t going to be happy listening to the complaints of today’s customers tomorrow morning. And good for you for taking a day off, Doctor. Enjoy yourself.” She caught Chakotay's eye from across the room and realized he had been drinking her in like a tall glass of water in the middle of the desert. And, as much as she wanted to listen to the Doctor detail his day off plans, she had to move on, so she quickly extracted herself from the conversation and made her way over to Chakotay. He had been chatting with Ayala and Henley about something.

“Are you ready to call it a night?” he asked, setting down an empty glass on a nearby table and allowing his hand to slip around her waist.

“Almost. I still haven’t seen Naomi.”

“She is over there, Captain,” B’Elanna told her as she brushed past her, headed toward the refreshment table.

“Thanks, B'E,” she replied, never before having called her Chief Engineer by the name only her closest friends occasionally called her.

B’Elanna paused and turned back with a curious look, but Chakotay shrugged his shoulders at her with a smile and she just shook her head and continued on her way, curious but nonetheless not.

“Captain! I have a present for you!” the little girl’s voice exploded above the noise. She jumped up from her seat and came running towards Kathryn carrying a familiar silver wrapped package with gold ribbon.

Kathryn dropped down to her knees, placing her at eye level with the beautiful little girl who had become their unexpected passenger ~~.~~

“It was very thoughtful of you to get me a present, Naomi. You must have saved your replicator credits. I can imagine how hard that was.”

Naomi was warmed inside by the amount of personal attention the Captain was showing her. Up until tonight, she generally seemed aloof except for on the rarest occasions. Naomi liked her like this and she hoped her present would convey that message as she passed it into her hands.

Kathryn wrapped her arms around the little girl and gave her a hug as she accepted the gift. Several crew members had gathered curiously around them and she wasted no time in sliding off the gold ribbon and tearing off the silver paper. She already knew what the gift would be but she still acted surprised as she pretended to study the beautiful silver framed images.

“Do you like it?” Naomi asked, hesitantly.

Kathryn pulled her in for another hug. “It is one of the best presents I have ever received. Thank you, Naomi.”

“It was my favorite day so far, but today is a very close second. Every day where my family is together is a good day.”

Kathryn brushed a hand through the pretty strawberry-blonde locks of the little girl. “You are absolutely right. It is a good day on Voyager so long as we are all together.”

She had to admit, she liked this version of the party much more than the previous one. She tucked her present from Naomi under her arm and even let Naomi talk her into a sleepover later that week. What she would do with her for a sleepover remained to be seen, but she wasn’t about to say no to that hopeful little face and vowed to brush up on some children’s games and literature.

“How do I secure an invite for a sleepover with the Captain?” Chakotay jokingly whispered in her ear.

She turned to him, noticing that they had made their way back around the room and were standing under the mistletoe. She gripped the front of his suit and, to the shock and amazement of anyone who was watching, she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips into his. He was so surprised he forgot how to respond for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. He was mildly disappointed when she broke away but he knew it was for the best before he lost all semblance of control.

“How do you know you already haven’t?” she playfully replied, causing his jaw to drop for the second time that evening.

She felt so full of mirth and merriment and immediately knew that this was a far better way to spend their journey home rather than as the regulation spouting Captain who kept herself at a distance. They had been thrown together as a hodgepodge family and she intended to get to know them, to be part of that family, rather than merely orbiting on the outskirts of it.

“Chakotay, what would you say if I suggested we head back to my quarters for one of my favorite holiday treats and a quiet cup of coffee?”

He managed a nervous sounding laugh. “Caramel brownies, I presume?”

“Okay, you got me. The butterscotch ones floating around on a tray somewhere are a poor substitute for caramel brownies.”

“I thought you said replicated brownies couldn’t hold a candle to your mother’s?” he teased as he followed her out the door and away from the party in the mess hall.

She rolled her eyes and snickered as they walked along the empty corridors. She felt strangely resolved and at peace and couldn’t help but wonder if this was the effect she’d had on him that led him to the tattoo on his hip. “Even a replicated substitute is better than a knock off.”

When they approached her door, she felt her heart quicken. This was it. She was really about to throw caution to the wind and cast aside the walls she had so carefully constructed to keep them safe. She knew the heavy price that could come any day during their treacherous journey. At any given time, she could be forced to order him on an away mission that he might not return from. She had to accept that it could happen. And as much as it made her want to bid him good night at her door and forget all about a possibility of a new future, there were two things that kept her going: the sad, pitiful woman who drank herself to death whom she could end up becoming and the fact that she now knew that she would likely hate herself even worse if she kept her distance and something happened to him anyway. She would hate herself for all of the could-have-been moments they had missed during his lifetime.

“Kathryn?” he questioned, noticing her hesitation and still curious at her earlier happy, free demeanor during the party. She suddenly seemed teetering on the wire of indecision.

She turned back to him with a shy smile as she tapped the keypad, signaling the door to open. “I’m fine. Just some...errant thoughts.” She led him into her quarters, tidy and organized as they always were. She had more than enough chaos in her life at the moment to conceive of disorganization in her personal space. She placed the picture frame on her desk so that Naomi would see it when she came to visit. Then she gestured to the couch while she ordered up a cup of black coffee for herself, a chai cup of tea for him, and a plate of brownies using the best approximation of her mother’s recipe she could manage.

“I have to admit, it was wonderful seeing you so cheerful among the crew,” he told her quietly, accepting the cup of tea as she sat next to him and placed the plate of brownies on the table. “I guess I wasn’t expecting you to ask me to escort you to the party, let alone to find you in such good spirits. I like seeing you like this. The crew likes seeing you like this, too.”

“Initially, I wasn’t going to ask you and I had intended to indulge my foul mood in a bottle of Jameson.” She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to tell him about her little sojourn with Q, but decided that maybe Q would allow her that one little liberty. “Chakotay, have you heard of the story 'The Christmas Carol' by Dickens?”

“Scrooge and Bob Cratchit and the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future? Yes, I remember reading it when I was much younger.”

Kathryn laughed. “Someone called me Scrooge earlier this evening. And I was visited by my own ghosts.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Kathryn, forgive me but are you sure that bottle of Jameson is still sealed? It isn’t like you to reference or believe in the spirit world.”

“Well, I didn’t get to the most horrifying part. The ghosts in this story happened to be played by none other than Q himself. Don’t worry, he is gone now. But I can say this much, I got to see a very generous side of him that I had no idea even existed,” she said, musing on the notion that Q could be benevolent.

Chakotay couldn’t prevent the prickly burn of jealousy that began at the mere mention of Q. The last time the omnipotent pest had shown his face, he had propositioned her, abducted her, and damn near destroyed the galaxy and _Voyager_ along with it.

Kathryn caught sight of his face and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Chakotay. He came without an ulterior motive but merely to bestow a gift upon me. We took a stroll through my past, I got a look at the present and we visited a future that will no longer occur. He gave me the opportunity to change my course to avoid a devastating outcome.”

“I see. So your journey this evening prompted your change in demeanor?”

“Not just my journey—but the revelation that I don’t need to keep all of you at a distance from myself in order for this mission to be successful. All along, I have been looking for friends and allies in this quadrant to help us along when I have personally denied myself some of the greatest friends and allies I could have. We are in this together and we need to be able to depend on each other. Myself included. I can’t do this alone. I need to stop pretending that I can. It is going to be hard at times but anything worth doing generally is. I don’t want to find myself the lonely bitter woman I became in the other future I saw.”

“What exactly are you telling me, Kathryn?” He had a feeling he knew what she was getting at, but wouldn’t allow himself to get his hopes up unless she said it.

Kathryn turned to face him, her hand finding his cheek, her eyes locked on his, catching the slight glimmer of anticipation that still remained in their chocolate depths. “I am saying I want to be part of the family our crew has begun to create. And, most of all, I want the us we had just begun to explore on New Earth.”


	9. Chapter 9

Without a word, he leaned forward and captured her mouth with his and she leaned back into him. Her hands found the back of his neck, threading into his hair. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his embrace.

She was slightly startled by the kiss but didn’t hold back. The touch of his lips to hers set off firecrackers within her body, lighting her up in a way she hadn’t felt since he had made love to her on New Earth. She felt a strange sense of completeness settle over her, knowing deep down in her gut that she was making the right decision. Her relationship with Chakotay was the culmination of the learning curves her prior relationships had been. If ever there was a man who was the perfect one for her, it was him. He was edgy, dutiful, loyal, and passionate. If all of the best attributes could have been plucked from her prior loves and wrapped up into one beautiful specimen of human male with some of his own best qualities, he embodied her own personal perfection.

The different paths they had walked in life didn’t matter. Chakotay knew he had been completely honest when he had told her he had found peace because of her. When he first laid eyes on her, she had represented everything he had rejected to fight for his people. Starfleet had dealt them into the hands of the enemy and he had seen the horrors the Cardassians had brought. His initial instinct had been to run from _Voyager_ until they could figure out exactly what the hell to do, but when her face had appeared on his viewscreen it was like a shockwave had struck him. She was diplomatic but more than that, she was willing to cast aside his branding as a criminal to achieve a greater good. She had known nothing about him as a man in that moment and had merely operated on instincts. Time and again, she had trusted him. He wasn’t a fool and he knew that it was in all of their best interest to step into Starfleet uniforms and work as a united crew when she made the invitation. In his heart, he had known he would follow her anywhere. He could see it in her eyes, could feel the fire of determination radiate from her. He had never counted on falling in love with her. But once he had, he knew it was a love that would endure in his heart no matter where life took them. No matter if once their journey was through she ended up a hero and he ended up in prison.

New Earth had ended hard. He had done as she asked. He had shoved his feelings under the rug after they had given themselves over to love and desire and passion. When they had made love, he had felt like their souls had touched, mingling together on some other astral plane that was beyond their comprehension. Yet somehow, he had managed to all but snuff out the passion and desire he felt for her, mask it behind the uniform. The love never died. And tonight, after what she had told him, after the emotional turmoil he had suffered when Q had shown up wanting to mate with her, to find out it was the very same Q who had set his universe right, part of him felt like it was too good to be true and the other part of him wanted to shake the omnipotent pest's hand for his generosity.

His thoughts took a sharp turn away from Q when Kathryn stood before him, elegant in the very becoming green dress he assumed she had replicated special for that evening. He loved the way her tresses tumbled around her shoulders like a waterfall set on fire when she removed the clip from the back of her head. She watched his face as she reached behind her and unzipped the dress, then let it slide down her arms to become a silky puddle at her feet. When she stepped out of it, she also stepped out of the shoes, leaving her nude with the exception of the strapless black lace bra and panties that certainly were not regulation undergarments in the least.

Kathryn suppressed a smile as he drank her in and she realized what Q had replicated for under her dress. Had she dressed herself, she would have just opted for what she already had: black sports bra and black briefs which were hardly as enticing. It was then that Chakotay began to undress, slipping off first the jacket, then the shirt, revealing his bronze chest. He shucked the top half onto the floor to join her dress then unclasped the pants and let them fall to his ankles. She had forgotten that he generally went sans briefs and let her eyes linger on his firm, swollen erection. He toed off his shoes and socks and stood before her like a sun-kissed Adonis. He had always been so comfortable with his nudity around her and she wondered if she would ever reach that level of comfort herself.

He sensed her hesitation, still covered in the erotic bra and panty ensemble. The lace was a tease, just enough to give the impression of her creamy skin beneath, but not enough to actually see the color change where the cream melted into the rosy gold of her areola and nipples that was very close to his own skin-tone. He pulled her against himself gently, letting his fingers find the lines of the lace that still covered her, his head dipping to press kisses along her left shoulder, kissing his way up to the hollow of her throat which made her squirm against him, along her jaw, then passing over her lips before following a path down the opposite side. Meanwhile his fingers, though out of practice, skillfully managed to release the clasp on her bra. It, too, joined the rest of the discarded clothes. He felt her shiver but knew it was not at all from being cold.

When he dropped to his knees in front of her, their height differential placed her nipples at perfect mouth level for him. He feathered kisses across her chest as his hands rested on her hips, avoiding her nipples. He followed the curve of one breast then the next before finally enveloping one of her nipples in the hot wetness of his mouth, eliciting a gasp from her. She hardly noticed when his fingers hooked in the lace of the panties and he slowly slid them down to her ankles. Then his mouth was on her other nipple, swirling his tongue against the hard peak. She felt her entire body hum in response to the attention and, in fleeing wonderment, tried to figure out exactly where his self-control was coming from after all of these months.

He had no intention of hurrying a single thing. He wanted to memorialize every detail of her, every freckle, every little gasp, every throaty moan, every staccato syllable of the way she would call out his name. He continued his journey down over her abdomen with his lips, his hands caressing down her hips and along her outer thighs. When he reached her lower abdomen, he felt the delicate tickle of her nearly manicured curls and inhaled the aroused scent of her, clouds of pheromones intoxicating him on a chemical level. He reveled in the scent of her and ached to taste her, but he held back. He wanted her off her feet and comfortable. He nuzzled his nose in the soft thicket and pressed a kiss to the apex of her lips before pulling away.

She allowed herself a little groan of mock dissatisfaction when he pulled away from her but she was anxious to take him to her bed. She wanted him to make love to her in comfort, a luxury they’d never had while on New Earth. At least Starfleet had been kind enough to afford her a bed large enough to be comfortable for two. She took his hand and led him into her bedroom then ripped back the sheets before allowing herself to be pulled into his embrace then gently guided back onto the bed. As much as she wanted to reacquaint herself with his body, she let him take the lead, relinquishing control and giving herself over to where ever he wanted to take her on this exploration of pleasure and passion.

Chakotay took a moment to sit back and drink her in, taking a mental image of her laying on the bed before him: the glow of her hair and the way it spilled over the pillows, the shimmer of her pale skin under the muted lights. “I love you, Kathryn,” he told her quietly.

She smiled up at him, feeling the warmth of his words wrap around her. “I love you, Chakotay.”

He smiled, then laid down on the bed with his head at waist level, picking up where he had left off. This time, she let her knees drop to the sides and he leaned into the invitation to kiss her lips that were wet with her arousal. His tongue slid along the slippery folds, tasting her and then finding the little nub that made her press against his mouth. He heard her moan and as he drank her in, he let his tongue flick against the sensitive nub until she was arching off of the bed, her fingers lacing into his hair, gripping gentle as he sent surges of pleasure through her body.

“Chakotay, oh, OH,” she moaned as his fingers gripped her bottom, holding her against his mouth. She was arched completely off the bed and her brain was drowning in an ocean of pleasure sensations. She couldn’t have articulated an intelligent sentence if she had wanted to. Her brain had completely given itself over to the intense hum that started where his mouth and tongue were working their magic. Fire bees. That’s all she could think. The sparks that rose up into the sky above a summer bonfire that danced and flitted on the air currents. She had called them fire bees when she was little and the name had stuck. She felt like fire bees were dancing along inside her body and under her skin. The sensation grew until every inch of her felt like she was on fire and going to explode into a supernova...and then she did. She cried his name as he sent her spiraling into oblivion, feeling nothing but vibrations of the pleasure shockwave that had slammed into her, as she bucked off of the bed against his mouth. Her body tingled almost like she was numb; however, she could still feel everything. It was such a peculiar feeling.

He pulled back from her, wetness still on his lips, and gazed down at her in adoration, enjoying the look of pure ecstasy on her face, the glazed over look in her eyes as the tides seemed to rise and fall in her body. When she regained her senses, she gazed up at him in astonishment as though she had never been made to feel something so intense. She reached to him then and he went to her easily, laying in his side as she slid into his arms. He noticed she was trembling slightly, still reeling from the intensity of her orgasm.

“There...aren’t words…” she finally managed to say. Never in her life had she ever experienced something so emotionally and physically powerful, not even in their cramped little cots on New Earth.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he told her before leaning in to capture her mouth again.

Kathryn felt rejuvenated by the kiss and found herself pushing him down onto his back. She wanted to make him feel as incredible as she did.

When she straddled him, he about stopped her, wanting to make the moment last for as long as possible but then she leaned down and kissed his forehead, letting her lips drift over his tattoo and down the side of his face then back to the center to find his lips. She let her tongue dance over his lips before slipping into his welcoming mouth to find his own. She only lingered there for a moment before continuing down his throat to his nearly bare chest, letting her lips slide along then cross to one side and envelope a nipple. He gasped, surprised at how sensitive they were to the feel of her mouth. He had never considered his nipples to be an erogenous zone, but the way she swirled her tongue around each one sent zingers of pleasure shooting through his body. Then she kissed his belly and down even further, her hair tickling his lower abdomen where it spilled across his thighs. He moaned involuntarily when she let her nails drift over his inner thighs as she took her time tracing the tattoo over his hip and groin with her tongue, sending a shiver of anticipation down his spine.

Kathryn hesitated for a moment, glancing up to find his dark eyes riveted on her. She let a saucy smile tickle across her lips before letting her right hand slide along his thigh, over his balls then up to grip his throbbing erection. The fires of passion and desire burned in his eyes looked like endless burning black coals in the dim light. She lost contact when she lowered her head to touch her lips to the weeping head of his cock, kissing away the shimmering droplets of precum. He gasped and she was encouraged, opening her lips around the head until it was inside her mouth. She swirled her tongue around the thickness of him and his hands found her hair, wrapping in the silken tendrils as he groaned her name.

Sweet Spirits, he wasn’t going to last long if he let her keep this up. Her lips sliding along his shaft, taking as much of him into her mouth as she could until his head was pulsating against the slippery heat of her throat was nearly enough to send him over. He thought he would be lost when her hand gripped the lower part of his shaft and she began stroking him, her small hand sliding up to meet her lips then back down to the base. He tried to think of something, anything to distract himself just enough to take the edge off but his brain was intoxicated with her and the scent of sex in the room. He let her continue for as long as he could manage but shortly found himself gently pulling her back and she gazed up at him, a devilish twinkle in her eyes. Spirits, he loved this woman.

He sat up then and reached for her, taking her into his arms as he pulled her down before rolling them so she lay beneath him. He settled onto his knees between her thighs and bent to capture her mouth again. Her hands wrapped around his neck as he reached under her, cupping her bottom in his hand, lifting her towards him as he felt the head of his cock slide between her puffy lips, then deeper into her hot, wet depths. He inhaled, long and deep as she moaned, her nails finding his shoulders. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his lips, allowing him to slip fractionally deeper inside of her. He exhaled slowly, fighting for control. _Steady, old man._

Sweet penetration. She felt her muscles initially resist and constrict against the fullness of having him inside of her, completing her. Ripples of pleasure shivered through her belly and she couldn’t help the moan that escaped her throat. She was drowning in pleasure surges that were sending shocks through her entire body, every nerve ending was lit up, every cell on fire. Yes, she loved this man so much she felt like she was going to burst. Then he moved inside of her, sliding back then pumping back in; her entire universe began to shatter into sweet fractures of blissful oblivion. She moaned his name over and over as she slipped over the edge while he restrained. His staccato thrusts were deliberate and slow, keeping himself in check so he didn’t follow her over the edge too quickly.

Pleasure hummed throughout his entire being. He felt her body tightening, sucking his cock into her deeply as her muscles twitched and pulsed. He sent her over the edge two, three, four times…he lost count. He held back as long as he could, struggling to keep his own release behind a brick wall that was quickly crumbling. But he just couldn’t get enough of the sound of her moaning his name, telling him she loved him, the way she threw her head back onto the pillow as she came, the drunken ecstasy on her face, the way her eyes burned like two blue stars in the darkness. Those eyes were going to be his undoing. The way she gazed at him—so loving, needing; he could no longer hold back. He pummeled into her, thrusts quickening as his balls clenched so tight until he felt his own burning release and he exploded within her, filling her with liquid heat. As his entire body tingled, he didn’t trust him arms to hold him up. He rolled onto his side, slipping from within her, then pulling her into his embrace.

Kathryn sighed, a warm contentment settling over her. She let him spoon her in his embrace and she smiled. “Forgive me for being so foolish?”

He chuckled. “Of course, Kathryn, my love.”

As they laid there, the sweat cooling and the flames of passion subsiding to roiling embers, she knew she had made the right decision. Again, she sent a silent thank you to Q. No matter what difficulties they faced, whether they stemmed from their new arrangement or their journey home, she knew that they would stand together. They would be an unstoppable force because together they were complete.

***

Q silently watched his handiwork as Chuckles pulled the blankets over their nudity. Kathryn would have a long and happy life now; he was certain of it. It was the least he could do to repay her for his son. Sure, things hadn’t worked out as he had planned. If they had, Kathryn would have been a Q now. She would have been his lover and the mother to his son. And perhaps they might have even had a daughter that looked like her. But that wasn’t how her life had been meant to play itself out in this universe.

Watching them together fascinated him. She loved Chuckles. He had to admit it. She loved the big oaf in a way that Q knew she could and would never love him. This concept of love fascinated him. Sure he was fond of her. But a Q being in _love?_ Absurd. Let alone being in love with a human. But maybe he was. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stand to see her suffer. Maybe that was why he was able to finally let her go, and why, in the end, her happiness was paramount; he knew he could be content with the knowledge that she would be happy now. And when he missed her wit, her amusing annoyance with him, he could always drop in on her and visit as he desired, which he most certainly would be doing along the way. After all, who else could keep her from messing up a good thing? She needed him—even if she would never admit it. After all, who couldn’t use an omnipotent immortal like him hanging around, looking out for her?


	10. Chapter 10

Epilogue - 2460

 

The day was crisp with blue skies. The sun beat down, warming the day to a beautiful 21°C, though a delicate breeze brought a cool, refreshing reminder that autumn had arrived. Of course it would be a perfect day. The universe wouldn’t have dared to defy her by allowing less than that for the day on which they laid a great legend to rest.

Tom Paris looked out over their small crowd. It was small compared to the official funeral held by Starfleet yesterday, which consisted of the admiralty, ambassadors, dignitaries, officers, the paparazzi, family, and friends—hell, pretty much anyone. And she would have hated it. She would have despised every moment and had been annoyed at all the fuss. Today was about family only—both her biological family and her _Voyager_ family. The state had gotten their way despite several of their protests, so they had conceded on the fact that the state presented a closed and empty coffin. No one would have been the wiser and none of those gathered here would breathe a word.

He looked over at the polished wood coffin. She looked beautiful, even at her advanced age. Her silver-white hair gathered about her face and over her shoulders on a bed of satin. Somehow age hadn’t diminished her. She looked as formidable as ever and as though she could wake at any moment and start barking orders in that gravelly voice that could cause cadets to snap to attention so ramrod stiff that they could end up straining muscles. Age may have physically changed her, but her mind had stayed sharp. The last several years she had been a little quieter, a little distracted, ever since Chakotay had passed a few years back. He had understood. He couldn’t imagine his life going forward without B’Elanna and he doubted quiet would be on the list of coping mechanisms for him.

She was here. His beautiful wife. B’Elanna sat with their daughter, Miral, and their son, Brendan, along with their spouses, children, and grandchildren. And Tom couldn’t have been more proud of his family.

Next to them was Kathryn and Chakotay's whole family. Their children: the twins Kaelinn and Kolopak and their younger sister Arabella with her children: John, who was between wives and still hadn’t gotten around to children, and Donald and Marjorie and their children, Elliot and Olivia. Kaelinn was seated next to her husband Austin, their son Quinton and his wife Bridget and their daughter Kathleen. Kolopak sat with his husband Francisco and their daughter, Ariel, Ariel's wife Anneliese and their triplet sons: Colton, Cody, and Coulter. Seated between Elliot and Olivia Janeway was Reanla Edaine, the great granddaughter of Kathryn’s late best friend and Kaelinn's namesake.

There were several other faces that were familiar such as Phoebe Janeway’s family, Samantha and Naomi Wildman with her siblings, their children and grandchildren, Harry and Annika Kim’s family, the Doctor and his wife and their adopted children, a couple of Tuvok’s children and grandchildren and several others that made up the extended _Voyager_ family.

The ocean of Starfleet uniform colors and the numerous Cadets in their midst made him proud. This was her legacy. All of the lives she had touched, all of the families that only existed as a result of their wayward trip to the other side of the galaxy and her decision to protect a race of gentle elfin people called the Ocampa.

“We are here today to remember and honor the life of the remarkable woman who we knew as Kathryn Janeway. After yesterday’s formal event, several of us agreed to hold this private funeral which we felt would be more fitting to what Kathryn would have preferred. We will progress more informally, anyone who wishes to come up and share their memories and thoughts are more than welcome to do so. Since I am already up here, I’ll go first.” Tom paused to take stock of the tear stained faces. He wasn’t quite sure how he was keeping himself together and swallowed back the lump in his throat. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Kathryn Janeway. My father used to come home, telling stories about this brilliant cadet and later young officer who he was convinced would take Starfleet by storm. Her name was a familiar one in my house when I was a young man. He had been proud of her like she was one of his own. I never laid eyes on her until that fateful day in 2371 when I was serving time in the Auckland penal colony. That unmistakable voice addressed me by name and I found myself looking up into those eyes…it wasn’t quite that look we all lovingly dubbed the death glare, but it was certainly that no nonsense look that let me know she called the shots. She exuded command and offered me a shot that I couldn’t resist. Freedom. I had thought about bailing on her. But where could I have gone? No, I was determined to be the best damned observer I could. When our mission got turned upside down and she offered me the field commission of Lieutenant and the chance to pilot _Voyager_ , it was like she was giving me the life back I had so carelessly discarded. It was nothing short of a miracle. She gave me a new future, I grew up, and I found the love of my life. Kathryn gave all of that to me. I am honored to have served with her as an officer and I am privileged to have called her a friend.”

Tom took his seat next to B’Elanna and felt her take his hand. He leaned over and kissed her cheek as the recently retired Captain Naomi Wildman made her way up to the podium. Her red-blonde hair had faded and now a few orange strands glowed in the sunlight among the crown of grey in the formal up-do. Her posture was still like that of an officer, straight back and head lifted. The way she carried herself reminded Tom of Kathryn. She positively never slouched until long after retirement when age finally caught up with her. Naomi hadn’t yet been retired long enough to lose that posture which became as natural as breathing to those who served in Starfleet.

“Kathryn Janeway was my idol, my role model, my hero. I don’t think that is a secret to anyone here. Being the only child on _Voyager_ in the Delta Quadrant, I spent a lot of time observing the adults around me and often being overlooked because I could squeeze into quiet little nooks and crannies. When I finally got brave enough, I told her about my wish to be her Captain’s Assistant and she indulged me. She gave me little menial tasks that were exceptionally important to me. I know it wasn’t exactly the ideal childhood, but I couldn’t have asked for a better one. Watching how Kathryn kept us together as a family and yet still carried the monumental responsibility to the ship, the crew, and the dedication she had to seeing that we got home, it was humbling. And I knew I wanted nothing more than to grow up and be just like her. And I did. I didn’t gain early admittance to the Academy because of who I was and because I was the first child born on Voyager. I worked hard. I dedicated myself. My classmates may have thought otherwise, but Kathryn had nothing to do with my early admittance and my grades. If anything, she was harder on me in the classes she taught than anyone else. And sometimes, I have to admit, I would get so angry at her for that. But, on the other hand, I knew she was setting me up to succeed. I only hope I have lived up to her expectations and that she knew just how instrumental she was to my life.”

Tom could remember the little girl who had loved mischief and Flotter stories and he knew that Kathryn had been exceedingly proud of the career path she had chosen and all of her successes. She had been proud of her as though Naomi had been her own daughter. He made a mental note to tell her that.

Olivia Janeway and her brother Elliot were the next to make their way to the podium. They were accompanied by Reanla Edaine. He didn’t know the Bajoran/Klingon young woman very well, but he was familiar with the other two. Olivia and Reanla were at the Academy while Elliot wore the uniform of an engineering ensign. Olivia was wiping tears from her dark eyes. She had gotten notes of her great grandfather’s coloring with her olive skin, dark hair and eyes while her brother was colored more like his great grandmother. His buzz cut hair was more of a sand color, but he had inherited the Janeway blue eyes and fair skin.

“Great Grandma Kathryn rescued me from something that could have been a very traumatic experience. It very easily could have changed the course of my life. I was fifteen years old and went to my first dance with the boy I thought was the love of my life. He wanted more from me than I was ready to give and, when I pushed him away, he began spreading nasty rumors about me. I came home from the dance crying. Grandma Kathryn had just finished baking caramel brownies and brewing a pot of coffee. I will forever be convinced there is magic in caramel brownies and coffee. She convinced me to come out from the nook in the kitchen I had hidden myself in, wanting nothing more than to be absorbed into the floor and die. Grandma Kathryn soothed my spirit and broken heart with her sandpaper voice and words of wisdom. I never wanted to go back to school, but Grandma Kathryn related a similar experience of her own to mine and it didn’t take me long to realize that I came from a line of strong women and I couldn’t let one pathetic jerk with difficult respecting me ruin everything for me. My favorite memory was curling up next to Grandma on the couch and laying my head on her lap while she stroked my hair like she used to when I was a little girl. She told me stories of her loves and losses and about how long she had waited for Grandpa Chakotay. Once, she even told me about how she nearly missed her chance if not for being visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. I can’t be sure but she may have been talking about some kind of vision quest. Now I wish she had told me more. But I am sure that is just one of the marvelous mysteries about the wonderful woman that was my Grandma. I loved her dearly and I know she will be with me when I graduate from the Academy. I know she will watch over me when the day comes when I get to command my first ship. Like Naomi Wildman, she was my idol and inspiration and I hope she will watch down on me and I will make her proud.”

Elliot wrapped his arm around his sister and gave her a supportive hug as tears spilled from her red rimmed eyes. He knew the circumstance she had mentioned and he also knew that Jason Burns had paid dearly for running his filthy lying mouth about his sister.

“From the time I was little, Grandma Kathryn used to laugh at me and call me her little Angry Warrior and it made me so…well…angry. I felt like she was mocking me. I don’t think it is a secret that I have a bit of a temper. I am sure Liv’s date from that dance would agree and, when I was through with him, he retracted all of the lies he had spread about her. What Liv doesn’t know is that incident nearly cost me the chance at Starfleet Academy. I was a senior and the school had wanted to expel me. It was the Janeway name that protected me and Grandma Kathryn’s visit to the dean of students. She assured him that she would see that I learned to restrain myself. And she did. No matter how old she was, when Grandma Kathryn spoke, you listened. And I did. She obtained a leave of absence for me and while Liv was at school, Grandma taught me a lesson in restraint and patience. She taught me to play pool.” Elliot paused to laugh at himself. “It probably sounds ludicrous, but it worked. I never would have imagined the amount of skill and control required to use a stick to direct a ball into the pocket on a table, but it required finesse and being able to pause and examine every angle of the situation. I can’t say I have fully mastered the art of self-control and just as recent as last year Grandma beat the pants off of me in a game. But that week off of school and the lessons she taught me and the conversations we shared were enough to allow me to successfully complete school and land my spot at the Academy; now I am an ensign with my first assignment. I’ll miss Grandma Kathryn’s gentle wisdom and her guidance. She always knew just what to say without saying too much.” Elliot felt his sister squeeze his hand while Edaine wrapped an arm around his back, giving him a supportive hug before she circled around him to step up to the podium.

“Kathryn Janeway was not my direct relation, but she may as well have been. Fate and circumstances forged an unexpected and life-long friendship between her and my great-grandmother, Reanla Kaelinn. Like Kathryn, _Sha-amala_ Kaelinn faced her own hardships by way of growing up under the iron fist of Cardassian enslavement. Like the majority of my people, she became part of the Resistance that stood up to fight against the overwhelming odds they faced. She withstood the horrors of the Occupation and survived, coming out far stronger for it. She passed those lessons and her strength on to all her descendants. During her last few years, we knew her health was declining, but her death two months after I celebrated my _itanu_ came as a shock to my family and especially me.”

The young Bajoran stared out over the assembled crowd for a long moment before continuing. “That shock drove me into deep grieving. If I wasn’t at Temple, I was locked in my room with a _duranja_ , trying to regain that spiritual connection we had shared while she was still living and my grief grew more intense when I couldn’t grasp it no matter how long or hard I prayed. I shut out everyone—family and friends alike—and my life was reduced to going through the motions. All I wanted to do was seek solace in prayer and my memories, to the point that I refused to attend a family gathering six months later.

“I was a little surprised when my uncle Anthel commed me two days after my family had left to tell me that Olivia and Marjorie were arriving that afternoon, especially considering that the last time I’d spoken to Olivia, the conversation did not end on a good note. I should have suspected something when I arrived at the transport station and the employee on duty said he had no record of their arrival, but that there was a passenger from Terra waiting for me. Much to my surprise, it was Kathryn. If I had not been wallowing in my grief, I might have suspected that she had come for a purpose other than she had been unable to attend the family directly after _Sha-amala’s_ death. But I saw her claim at face value, escorting her to the grave site, to Temple, inviting her to pray with me and teaching her the _duranja_ rituals. What she was really doing was working her way past the walls I had put up, little by little, until the day that she forced me to face the truth I had refused to admit: I was not only hurting myself with my behavior, but I was dishonoring _Sha-amala's_ memory. Kathryn stayed by my side during the resulting breakdown that I suffered, never once condemning me, not even when I screamed at her. She did not permit me to continue to wallow, but she also recognized that walking away from my grief was a process, not an instantaneous occurrence.   And when I came to realize that, I finally began to heal. I had to face the reality of a life without the woman who had been my role model for fourteen years; however, I was able to find comfort in knowing what _Sha-amala_ Kaelinn herself had taught me: as long as those who have gone before us are remembered, they cannot ever be forgotten. She would always be with me in memory.   I know that I will see her—both of them—again some day. And, like Liv, I hope that they are both looking down from the Celestial Temple and will be proud of the path that I walk." Edaine's voice wavered on the last words as she turned from the podium. Olivia and Elliot both embraced her and the three young people clung to each other for a long moment before they stepped down to return to their seats.

After a brief delay to give others the chance to speak, Tom returned to the podium. “I would like to close by saying that, while we have all suffered a great loss in Kathryn’s passing on, I believe it is abundantly clear that she left a monumental imprint on the lives of so many; not just here but throughout the galaxy. May we all meet again someday in the existence that awaits us after this life.” Tom paused to let his words settle then continued: “The Janeway family has graciously invited everyone to join them for a meal and memories this afternoon at their home.”

As the mourners drifted away from the grave site, heading towards the transporter station, the three young descendants trailed behind the group. Olivia suddenly paused, leaving her brother and best friend to walk ahead; an inner instinct moved her to turn back and look in the direction of Grandma Kathryn’s coffin. She spotted a man in a dark suit with an old fashioned black hooded cloak approach the coffin. He let a hand run along the smooth, dark polished wood before laying a bouquet of red roses on the closed lid.

She turned back to her brother and friend. “Hey? Do you recognize that man?” she asked, drawing their attention.

“Who?” Elliot asked, gazing over his sister's shoulder towards where they had left their Grandmother’s casket.

Olivia once more turned to look in the direction of the grave site. The roses remained but the man had seemingly vanished into thin air. She hadn’t turned away long enough for him to have been able to leave the area on foot. The only thing she could assume was he had transported away. It was the only thing that made sense. “Nothing. I thought I saw someone. I guess not.”

Elliot wrapped one arm around his little sister's shoulders and the other around Edaine. “It has been a rough day for all of us. Let’s go get a bite to eat and just take it easy. I am sure there will be stories shared about Grandma and even Grandpa that we won’t want to miss.”

***

The man in the cloak leaned against a shaded tree, watching her legacy as they departed, no doubt headed to spend some time together to remember the life she had lived. He pushed the cloak back, enjoying the simple pleasures of his human form as the breeze stirred the hair on his scalp. It was a life he could indulge in, but it certainly was not his own.

He eyed the trio that trailed the rest of the group; his eyes particularly focused on the olive skinned brunette. That one possessed fire. It wasn’t like the seeds of anger that her brother battled. No. She was vivacious, passionate. Her great grandmother lived in her essence.

He returned his attention to the gleaming coffin. “Kathy, my dearest, I have but one regret in my immortal existence. You refused me. I never found the words to tell you then, but my offer to make you the mother of my child was a smoke screen. You were right—but for the wrong reasons. Sure, my idea had merit in ending the war in the Continuum, but it wasn’t a smoke screen for that at all. It was a smoke screen for my true feelings for you. I was too immature, far too much of a trickster for you to ever take me serious. And I lied to myself. You see, I couldn’t face rejection by a mere mortal female. My ego wouldn’t have handled that. I told myself that, if you wouldn’t agree to participate in my plan, it was my plan itself you found fault with, not me. The truth is, I tried to sweep in and take your heart when it already belonged to another. My motives for our foray into the past, the present, and the future were to ensure you had a long and happy life. If I couldn’t be the one to give you the happiness you deserved, then I felt it was my duty to see that Chuckles did. And that meant making you see reason. You didn’t make it easy on me and, for a while, I didn’t think I would succeed. Yes, I...omnipotent and with infinite control over time, matter and space, thought I might have met my match. But as is typical, I was victorious.”

Q adjusted the roses he had laid on her coffin when he sensed a presence behind him. Another mourner had come to pay his final respects. But he knew this presence well, nearly as well as his own.

“How do you manage? Mortals have such a brief existence; how do you deal with it when you become attached to one and then they die?”

Q turned to his son, now a full Q himself, and a fine upstanding member of the Continuum, despite his rocky beginnings. His about face was yet another little miracle Kathryn Janeway had performed. He doubted she ever realized the incredible impact she had on the universe. Because of her, his son had learned some of the redeeming qualities of humanity he couldn’t have hoped to have taught him. In turn, watching his son exhibit these qualities had permitted him to learn them himself. The pebble she had tossed into the water when she had watched over Junior for the week he had been left on _Voyager_ had resulted in ripples spreading out through the Continuum. They learned from the boy and the very nature of what it meant to be Q had changed permanently.

“Junior, there are some things in the universe that even I have not uncovered the answer to.”

The younger Q studied his father then, seeing a side of him he hadn’t previously known. If he were to put a name to what he was seeing, it would have to be sadness, loss, despair. He paused then, fully realizing the depths of his father’s feelings for the mortal woman he had called Aunt Kathy.

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

“Me? In love with a mere bipedal female? Nonsense. I….” Q paused in his posturing and sighed. There was no point in denying it. “Yes, Junior. I loved her.”

“Why not make her Q? Then she never would have had to die.”

Q swallowed hard. “I couldn’t do that. When I offered her the opportunity to become your mother and therefore to become a Q, she refused. That wasn’t the last time I offered her life as a Q. After Chuckles had died, I visited her. I had hoped that since she had a full human life and had ensured her legacy through her children she would finally be ready to embark on a new journey of exploration. Again, she refused me. To Kathryn, there was a natural order to life and with life comes death. She had lived. All that was left was to die. I loved her too much to override her wishes. I suppose there are even a few things that omnipotence can’t buy.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?”

“Was loving her from a distance worth the pain of losing her?”

Q considered his son's question before a slow smile spread across his face. “Her existence was but a blink on the grand timeline of the universe and it is the one blink that I will always remember, always treasure. Was it worth it? Absolutely.”

Junior smiled then, glad to hear his father was not bitter and also reassured that should he take an interest in pursuing the beautiful brunette great granddaughter of his Aunt Kathy, it would be worth it. “See you at home, father.” He snapped his fingers and vanished.

Q remained, turning then to the headstone that marked the grave site of Kathryn’s husband. He laid a hand on it. “Thanks you for making her happy all of those years, Chuckles. Since it couldn’t be me, I am glad it was you. You treated her like the queen she was.” Once more, he touched Kathryn’s coffin. “ _Au revoir_ , Kathryn.” And with a snap of his own fingers, he left her to lay at rest at the side of her husband; he took with him only a lesson on the power of the emotion humans had named as love and the memory of a great mortal female whose light burned bright yet all too fast. She may have been gone, but he was content in knowing that, because of his intervention, her bloodlines and her great legacy lived on—and would continue to for many centuries to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with how to wrap this tale up nice and neat. The ending that I picked was not my first choice. I, like many others, just cannot grip Kathryn Janeway no longer existing in the universe; even if her death in this story's epilogue did result from old age after a long and fulfilling life including the family she had always wanted for herself. However my wise beta-Cheile advocated (successfully) for this ending. Despite her dislike of Q (whom I adore), I think she liked the revelation of the lessons that he had learned from a 'mere mortal female' and that it showed a truth to his character that was mostly left unseen in the actual episodes of his appearances across three Trek series'.  
> For those who are interested in the original ending, I have taken the liberty of posting it separately on my own website. It was suggested that I do so this way for a couple of reasons. The first was so that it didn't confuse anyone. The second was so that those who did not wish to read the alternate ending and wanted to leave the story here, as it is, could do so and not accidentally start reading without realizing that the page had turned to begin the alternate ending. 
> 
> To all readers: Thank you so much for your feedback, kudos, and kind support. Also, thank you for reading my first completed Trek fan-fic in, literally, years. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays & wishes for a Bright New Year!
> 
> [Alternate Ending - Click Here](http://amethyst-fire.4t.com/voybook18/Q/QChristmas.html)


End file.
